


Milo Murphy’s Life: The Duckburg Incident

by tlong0038



Series: Milo Murphy’s Life [1]
Category: Big Hero 6, DuckTales (Cartoon 2017), Milo Murphy’s Law
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-10 17:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 27,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19909249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tlong0038/pseuds/tlong0038
Summary: Milo Murphy’s Life is a direct continuation of the canonical events of Milo Murphy’s Law. Milo and his friends are attempting to return to Earth after having successfully dissipated the Sphere of Calamity.





	1. Chapter 1

When Milo Murphy came to his senses, he didn’t know for a second where he was. He was sprawled across the deck of the Octalian starship that his friends had taken from Earth after he had been abducted for the second time a few days ago. The large, heavy backpack that he normally carried everywhere was wedged awkwardly beneath him, digging into the small of his back. A pool of sunlight spread across the deck through a crack in the opposite bulkhead. Milo’s head was throbbing and there was a large lump on the back of his skull from where his head had hit the deck after he had been knocked over. One eye was swollen shut and he could taste blood in his mouth. He lay still for a moment, assessing and feeling for additional injuries. As far as he could tell, there weren’t any. Milo tried to sit up. Everything swam and he suddenly felt slightly nauseous. He fell back and let his nausea subside.  
From somewhere in the corner of his vision, he thought he saw a flicker of motion. Much more slowly, Milo turned his head. A tall man with a very thin frame was slowly getting to his feet. His normally fastidiously neat suit was rumpled and the small spectacles that were normally perched on the end of his long, thin nose were askew. His top hat was missing.  
Milo groaned. He swallowed some of the blood in his mouth and said, “Cavendish? What happened?”  
Balthazar Cavendish started slightly at the sound of his name, then looked visibly relieved. “Milo,” he said, “thank god, are you all right?” He started to pick his way across the bridge to where Milo still lay spread eagled on the deck. By the time he reached Milo, the thirteen year old boy was slowly getting to his feet.  
Milo wobbled slightly as he surveyed the scene. Zack, Melissa and Dr. Doofenshmirtz lay limp on the deck. He spied a red and gold track-suited figure slumped in a corner where he had hit the rear bulkhead. The primary control console had been knocked off of its base, the wind screen was a spiderweb of cracks and the deck plates were buckled. He turned back to Cavendish. “Where are Perry and Cavenpuss?”  
“I don’t know, Milo,” said Cavendish. “We should check on the others.”  
Milo nodded and moved toward where Zack Underwood lay face down. Milo let his backpack fall to the deck with a dull thud and stiffly knelt down over Zack. He took Zack by one shoulder and gently shook him. “Zack? Can you hear me?” he said, “it’s me, Milo.”  
Zack moaned softly and said, “Milo? I think my wrist is broken.”  
Milo took Zack both shoulders and sat him up. “Can you stand?” he asked. Zack nodded. Milo looked relieved, “c’mon,” he said, “we need to check on Melissa.” The two boys got to their feet and walked over to Melissa, who was already sitting up. She had a cut over one eye, but otherwise appeared to have come through the crash unscathed. Next to her a teal coloured platypus chittered its teeth in greeting and a very tiny figure with Cavendish’s face and the teal body of its companion nodded at them.  
“Its good to see the three of you on your feet,” said Cavenpuss in Cavendish’s clipped English accept.  
“Are you and Perry alright?” asked Milo.  
Perry chittered again and Cavenpuss nodded. “Yes, we seen to have come through the ordeal unscathed. Thank heavens for small mercies.”  
“Where are Cavendish and Dakota and Dr. Doofenshmirtz?” asked Zack.  
“Over there,” Milo started to say, but he stopped and look around.”Where’s Diogee?” He had to fight down a moment of panic. He was’t sure he could deal with any of this without his faithful dog. However, as if on cue, a barrel chested dog on with a long nose came trotting out from behind a corner on short legs and wagging its stumpy little tail. Milo sighed in relief and turned to Zack and Melissa. “Do either of you remember what happened?” he asked. He looked around at the wreckage. He tried got search his mind a remember what had happened, but it was all a blur. “Did I do this?”  
“Oh, no dear boy,” responded Cavenpuss. He nodded to where Cavendish, and his partner, Vinnie Dakota, were huddled with a lanky looking round shouldered man in a lab coat. “This wasn’t Murphy’s Law,” he said.  
“Of course,” Zack interjected with a sigh.  
Melissa rolled her eyes. “Who else but Doofenshmirtz.”  
They broke off their conversation as Cavendish, Dakota and Doofenshmirtz approached. Dakota had one arm in a sling made from a ragged strip of cloth torn from the hem of Doofenshmirtz’ lab coat.  
“You kids OK?” asked Dakota in his gravelly voice.  
“I think my wrist is broken,” replied Zack.  
“Let me see that,”said Cavendish. Zack held out his injured wrist. Cavendish took it. He probed it gingerly with his long thin fingers. Zack winced. After a minute or two Cavendish let go of Zack’s wrist. “I don’t think it’s broken,” he said. “You merely have a very bad sprain.”  
“We’re probably all lucky to be alive,” said Dakota, shooting a venomous look at Doofenshmirtz.  
“What are you looking at me like that for?” he asked, looking aggrieved. “OK, fine I crashed the ship, you think I did it on purpose or something.”  
“Oh, come on,” Zack interrupted, “we could have been killed and we need this ship to get home.”  
“Alright,” said Cavendish holding up his hands in a placating gesture, “we are alive and relatively uninjured.”  
“No thanks to him,” said Dakota, glaring at Doofenshmirtz.  
“Dakota, you’re not helping,” responded Cavendish.  
“But what about Milo,” asked Melissa. “Even if we can repair the ship, there’s still Murphy’s Law.”  
“You know she has a point, Cavendish,” said Dakota. “You know what we-I mean…..” Dakota trailed off. None of them needed to be reminded of how they had thought that they had found Milo adrift and dying amid the debris of the ships that had brought him to Octalia to disrupt the Sphere of Calamity. There was a minute or two of silence during which nobody looked at anybody else. It was finally Cavenpuss who broke the uncomfortable silence.  
“Well, what do I know,” began Cavenpuss slightly sarcastically, “I’m only three days old, but Melissa is quite correct. Milo seems to have an unusually rapid and powerful effect on the Octalians’ technology. It might useful to find a way to counteract Murphy’s Law.”  
“Well, OK,” said Dakota, “but how do we do that?”  
“What about those kids we ran into when the Pistachions tried to take over the world last year,”said Zack, “you know the ones from the other side of town?”  
“Oh yes,” said Cavendish slowly, “those remarkable stepbrothers,” he thought harder, “let me see, what were their names.”  
“I think their names were Phineas and Ferb,” said Milo. “I remember them, we helped them build the Murphy’s Law suit.” The Murphy’s Law suit had allowed Phineas and Ferb to channel the negative probability field created by Milo’s body into a tightly focused beam of probability, which had allowed them to defeat the Pistachions.  
“Those two kids would be helpful to have around right now,” said Dakota. “Too bad we didn’t think to pick them up before we went looking for Milo.”  
“There was no time,” replied Cavendish with a shake of his head.  
“It’s OK, Dakota,” said Milo, “as my Dad likes to say, sometimes if you want to save an alien planet, you have to break seventeen bones.”  
“Back to the question at hand,” said Cavendish, “how do we mitigate Milo’s negative probability field so we can go home?”  
“Well,” said Zack thoughtfully, “could we reproduce the effect that Phineas and Ferb had on Milo?”  
Everyone turned to look at Doofenshmirtz.  
He threw up his hands in exasperation. “What are you all looking at me for?” he said in annoyance. “You crash an alien spaceship one time and nobody ever lets you forget it!”  
Perry chittered at him.  
“Yes, I know I did, Perry the Platypus, but I-“  
Perry chittered again.  
“Oh fine,” said Doofenshmirtz in annoyance. “This isn’t going to be easy,” he said the others, who had been watching his conversation with Perry.  
“Melissa, didn’t you study Murphy’s Law?” asked Zack. “Maybe you could give Dr. D a hand.”  
Melissa tried and mostly succeeded to hide a look that said thanks, Zack. Out loud she said, “yeah sure, I never really found a pattern to Murphy’s Law though, so I don’t know how much help I can be.”  
Doofenshmirtz gave a lazy wave with one of his large hands. “Well, come on,” he said to Melissa. “We had better get started. We’ll need to scavenge parts from the ship.”  
Melissa looked slightly alarmed. “Ummmm……is that a good idea, Dr. D?” she asked.  
“Well, if I was in my shed with all of my inators, it would be easier,” he began, “but this is an alien spaceship, I’m sure nobody will notice if a few parts here and there go missing.”  
“Well, OK,” replied Melissa slightly doubtfully, “what do we need?”  
Doofenshmirtz rattled off a list of parts.  
“Ummm, OK,” said Melissa, “I have no idea what any of those are.”  
Perry chittered.  
“Yes, thank you, Perry the Platypus,” replied Doofenshmirtz.  
Melissa looked from Perry to Doofenshmirtz and back again. “What did he say?” she asked  
“He knows where to find the parts we need,” responded Doofenshmirtz.  
“But how does he know that?” asked Melissa.  
Doofenshmirtz waved a hand. “You’d be surprised,” he said. “Perry the Platypus is very resourceful.”  
“Well, ummm, OK,” said Melissa, “I guess we have an inator to build. We should get going.” She turned to leave the bridge, with Doofenshmirtz following behind her and Perry bringing up the rear.

As Melissa left with Doofenshmirtz and Perry following behind her, Dakota said, “OK, so let’s say they manage to build a negative probabilityinator, we still need to fix the ship. How are we going to do that?”  
“Perhaps the Octalians can help us,” said Zack. “We did help them save their world, after all.”  
Cavendish nodded, “an excellent suggestion. Let’s go talk to them.” He turned and made his way toward the gap in the bulkhead where the sunlight spilled across the floor. Dakota and Cavenpuss fell in behind him. Milo lingered for a minute, picking up his heavy backpack where he had dropped it earlier, and shrugged it onto his shoulders. Zack watched him for several seconds.  
“Are you, going to be OK, Milo?” asked Zack.  
Milo turned to look at him. “Admittedly, the is one of the weirder things that has happened to me, but I’ll be fine.”  
“Are you sure?”asked Zack. “They cloned you, and abducted you-“  
“Twice,” Milo interjected.  
“And, I mean, well, you had us worried for awhile.”  
“I appreciate it, Zack, but don’t worry about me.” Milo placed a grateful hand on Zack’s shoulder. “I’ll be OK.”  
The two boys followed Cavendish, Dakota and Cavenpuss out of the ship into the light.

The walk from the ship back the the Octalian city only took about an hour. They had not had very much altitude when the crash had happed. Multicoloured figures were coming toward them from the ruined city. No doubt, the Octalians had heard the sound of the crash and were coming to investigate. As they got closer Milo thought he recognized Loab, Khone, Orgaluth and her mother. Loab reached them first. He surveyed the four battered looking humans and Cavenpuss. He was approximately Milo’s height and very thin with aquamarine skin.  
“Milo,” he said in surprise, “what happened?”  
“Hi Loab, we had an accident with our ship,” replied Milo.  
“Murphy’s Law?”asked Loab.  
“No,” said Cavendish, in response to Loab’s question.  
“Some nutjobber, who shall remain nameless, damaged our primary control console,” continued Dakota. “We were hoping you could help us fix it.”  
“Oh, of course,” replied Loab, gesturing with one tentacled arm to a tall magenta coloured Octalian a short distance away, “You should talk to Commander Grunthos.” Together with Loab, Milo, Cavendish, Dakota, Zack and Cavenpuss walked over to Commander Grunthos and Orgaluth. Milo, Cavendish and Dakota took turns in relating what had happened and the condition of their ship.  
“Of course, we’ll help you,” she said, “after all you’ve done for us, how could we not.” She turned to Loab and Khone. “Give then whatever help they need.”  
Loab saluted with two of his tentacles and said, “yes, Ma’am.” 

Loab and Khone went back to the ship with Milo, Cavendish, Dakota, Zack and Cavenpuss. Together the seven of them spent the rest of the day and into the night surveyed the ship and assessing the extent of the damage. It was almost morning by the time they were done. The ship was not as badly damaged as they had feared and repairs went quickly. In the meantime, Melissa, Doofenshmirtz and Perry had dissembled the inators that Doofenshmirtz had brought with him and together with the parts that they had scavenged from the ship, had been able to cobble together an inator that they thought would cancel out Murphy’s Law.  
“OK, gather round everyone,” said Doofenshmirtz, “this is the Murphy’s Lawinator, which will cancel out Murphy’s Law!”  
“We hope,” said Melissa, “this is our first chance to test it.” She gestured to the strange conglomeration of assorted parts sitting on the console in front of the large bridge window. “Milo, we need your backpack.”  
“Sure.” Milo took it off and tossed to her.  
Melissa opened it and began taking out the contents, which included a flashlight, a rolling pin, a length of rope, an umbrella and a bowling pin. “This is a pretty simple experiment,” she said as she emptied Milo’s backpack of its contents, “anything that can go wrong around Milo usually does.” She gestured to Doofenshmirtz and the Murphy’s Lawinator. “We figure that as Milo carries his backpack practically everywhere its contents will be heavily saturated with negative probability ions. Any bad things that can happen to them probably will.”  
Doofenshmirtz made a few final adjustments to the Murphy’s Lawinator and then turned it on with the snap of a switch. Several green and blue lights glowed on here and there on the Murphy’s Lawinator, but otherwise it was silent. Everyone stared at the assorted items arrayed on the console in front of them, waiting for something to happen.  
After what seemed like a long time, Zack said, “Umm, Milo, I don’t suppose you can try make something happen?”  
Milo shook his head and shrugged. “Sorry, Zack. Murphy’s Law doesn’t really work that way.”  
“Well, we’ve been standing here for nearly twenty minutes,” said Dakota. “I think if something were going to happen, it would have happened already.”  
Cavendish nodded. “I am inclined to agree,” he said. “The Octalians have almost finished the repairs and are going to run a few final checks. We can depart in the morning.”

The city of Duckburg lay on a bend in the Drake River between Bear Mountain and Audobon Bay. Scrooge McDuck sat on the large terrace behind McDuck Manor, enjoying the early morning sunshine, along with the view and a cup of nutmeg tea. In the middle of the bay, at the end of a long stone pier, the gilt finial of the Money Bin glinted in the morning sun. On the far side of the bay, he could clearly make of the shapes of skyline of New Quackmore, in the early morning haze. Farther along the coast, the skyscrapers of St. Canard were only barely visible. Scrooge took his eyes off the view from the top of Bear Mountain and turned to the leather folder next to the bone china tea pot emblazoned with a gold dollar sign. He opened the file folder, took out the papers inside and scanned them quickly. They were mostly the mundane details of running a large corporation. A mining operation in Wronguay. The construction of a new factory in Cape Suzette. Stock price updates. An update on the repairs to Von Drake Seed Vault. Same old, same old, he thought. He continued scanning through the various reports and projections until one in particular caught his eye. Ah, he thought. The heading at the top of the page read:

Project#843-257-971

Inter-dimensional Einstein-Rosen Bridge

Dr. Gyro Gearloose

What have you cooked up now, Gyro, thought Scrooge eagerly. He began to read the file more intently. It was full of technical jargon, physics equations and and exploded engineering diagrams. A stable inter-dimensional gateway, thought Scrooge eagerly, very impressive. Scrooge’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind him on the terrace. He turned to see his maid, cook and confidant, Mrs. Beakley approaching.  
“Good morning, sir,” she said. “I have your schedule for today.”  
“Oh, yes about that,” said Scrooge, “please cancel my morning appointments, and have Launchpad bring the car around to the main entrance, oh, and have Della and the kids meet me in the front hall in ten minutes, I’ve decided to go down to the Bin. Gyro has a new project that he wants to show me, and I thought I’d take Della and the kids.”  
“Very good, sir,” said Mrs. Beakley. She picked up Scrooge’s breakfast tray and disappeared back into the mansion.

Ten minutes later, Scrooge stood in McDuck Manor’s vast entrance hall. Sunlight fell on through leaded windows onto gleaming suits of armour. Portraits of past patriarchs and matriarchs of Clan McDuck hung on the oak and mahogany panelled walls. The footsteps of his niece, Della Duck, and her three sons, Huey, Dewey and Louie, along with Mrs. Beakley’s grand daughter, Webbigail Vanderquack, echoed off of the black and white checked marble floor.  
“Ah, good,” said Scrooge excitedly,“you’ve all arrived. I’ve got a special treat for you today. Gyro has new project he wants to show us.”  
“Ooooh!” said Huey excitedly. “I wonder what it is.”  
“A new Gizmoduck suit?” speculated Dewey.  
“A time machine?” wondered Webby.  
Louie said nothing. He could always be counted on to feign disinterest.  
“Actually, you’re all wrong,”said Scrooge, “Gyro has built an inter-dimensional wormhole generator.”  
“Whoa! Cool!” said Huey, in amazement. “Gyro cracked inter-dimensional space folding? How did he do that?” Huey pulled a battered and well thumbed book out from under his red baseball hat and quickly rifled through it. “According to the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook it would take the energy of a neutron star to hold open an inter-dimensional wormhole.”  
Scrooge merely smiled at his three nephews. “I‘m sure Gyro will be happy to answer all your questions.” He pulled a gold pocket watch out of his red and black frock coat. He glanced out of the leaded windows on either side of the double front doors in time to see the limousine tooling around the large circular front drive. A tall, barrel chested figure in a battered flight jacket, boots and a baseball hat got of the driver’s side door. He walked around to the rear passenger side door and opened it, then covered the distance from the car to the front door in three or for long strides. “That’ll be Launchpad with the car.”  
No sooner than Scrooge had spoken, than the front door was yanked open and Launchpad McQuack stood framed into the opening. “Good morning, Mr. McD!”  
“Morning, Launchpad,” said Scrooge genially.  
“Hi kids,” said Launchpad garrulously to Huey, Dewey, Louie and Webby. The kids gave him an enthusiastic wave in return. For the last decade Launchpad had served has Scrooge’s driver and personal pilot. Launchpad was the only person that Scrooge knew who was as crazy and dangerous as he was. Launchpad stuck out a friendly hand and said, “Morning Della.”  
Della gave Launchpad a cool and reserved, “Hello, McQuack.” Della had disappeared a decade earlier, shortly before the birth of her three sons. In the intervening ten years she had been stranded on the Moon. Della had missed a lot and was still trying to figure out where she fit in Scrooge’s unorthodox family. Returning only to find that Launchpad had replaced her as Scrooge’s pilot hadn’t helped. Scrooge, Della and the kids piled into the back of the limo. Launchpad shut the passengers’ side door and walked back around to the driver’s side door. He sat down behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. The engine rumbled to life and Launchpad put a big, booted foot down on the accelerator. The limo tooled down the long winding driveway that led up McDuck Manor and through the elaborate wrought iron gates.

The drive down from McDuck Manor through downtown Duckburg to the Money Bin only took half an hour. At this early hour, there were very few cars on the road and Launchpad was able to negotiate through the light morning traffic with ease. The limo turned off the highway which ran along the waterfront and onto the long stone pier which stretched like a long finger into Audubon Bay. Ships of various sizes rode at anchor far out in the harbour. The Money Bin loomed large in the near distance., casting a long square shadow over the pier that connected the rocky island on which it was built to the mainland.  
The limo pulled into the yawning garage at the base of the Money Bin and rolled to a stop in front of Scrooge’s private elevator. Launchpad parked the limo, turned off the engine, got out and walked around to the rear passenger side door. He opened it and Scrooge, Della, Huey, Dewey, Louie and Webby piled out. The seven of them walked from the car to Scrooge’s private elevator. On most days, Scrooge and the kids would have gone up to his office, which occupied most of the top floor of the Money Bin. Scrooge’s inner sanctum consisted of his private study which contained his desk, a display case containing his Number One Dime, a stock ticker and a vault door ten feet in diameter and four feet thick which allowed access by way of a diving board to the cavernous space that contained the majority of Scrooge’s considerable fortune and made up the majority of the Bin’s internal volume. Various doors led from Scrooge’s study to a waiting room which was accessed from a different elevator, a private dining room and attached kitchen, a bedroom and an attached bathroom, as well as a large conference room and a secure archive which could only be accessed by himself and Miss Quackfaster, his personal archivist. On the floor below, which was accessible from a spiral staircase concealed behind a false bookcase in Scrooge’s study, were the heart of the Bin’s formidable security system, secure storage for the more valuable or dangerous artifacts that Scrooge had collected in his travels, a worry room, in which he would often pace and think out problems, and a fully stocked armoury, should the Money Bin need to be actively defended.  
Today, however, was different and as the seven of them entered Scrooge’s private elevator, he pushed the button, not for the top floor and his private study, but the bottom most level of the Money Bin’s basement. The Money Bin’s basement was eight levels deep and consisted mostly of storage rooms for the Bin’s more mundane needs and filing cabinets which contained the records of McDuck Enterprises’ various business activities. The elevator stopped with a gentle bump on the bottom most level of the Money Bin’s basement and the doors parted with a soft chime. Scrooge, Della, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby and Launchpad stepped out of the elevator into a spotlessly clean corridor. It was lit with utilitarian fluorescent lighting fixtures spaced at regular intervals on the ceiling. The concrete walls were unadorned and painted hospital white. The floor was covered with drab looking linoleum tiles. They walked from the elevator to the far end of the corridor and came to a stop in front of the security door that marked the entrance to Gyro’s laboratory, which took up most of the Bin’s deepest sub level. Scrooge place his hand on the biometric scanner next to the door. They heard a loud beep as the Bin’s security system read his palm, and a flat electronic voice said, “McDuck, Scrooge, access granted.” The corridor echoed with the sound of electronic tumblers sliding back into some hidden recess and the security door opened. The seven of them stepped inside and the door automatically swung shut again. They could clearly hear the electronic tumblers slide back into place.

Gyro Gearloose’s laboratory consisted of a well equipped workshop where the eccentric scientist did most of his fabrication and assembly, a design studio, secondary lab for basic experiments and a library filled technical manuals and a wide variety of academic journals on a wide range of subjects. As with Scrooge’s inner sanctum on the top floor, Gyro’s laboratory was his personal fiefdom and contained a kitchen with an eating area and a bedroom with an attached office and bathroom. He also suffered few trespassers gladly and fools not at all.  
At the sound of the security door opening and closing, a head appeared through an open door, beyond which a large electron microscope and a mass spectrometer were partially visible. Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera stepped out into the corridor. “Mr. McDuck,” he said, “what an unexpected surprise. Nobody told us you were coming.”  
Scrooge shook Fenton’s hand in friendly greeting. “Yes, I’m sorry for dropping in unannounced like this, I know that Gyro doesn’t like surprise visitors,” or visitors at all really, thought Scrooge, “but I read Gyro’s report and-“  
“Oh,” Fenton interjected excitedly, “so you’re here to see the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, actually that was my idea.”  
“Was it, now,”said Scrooge, clearly impressed, “well, it seems that you and Gyro are both to be congratulated. A stable doorway to another dimension is no small accomplishment.”  
“Why don’t you come with me and I’ll show you the bridge,” said Fenton eagerly. He turned, and the others followed him down the corridor. They eventually stopped in front of a hermetically sealed clean room. Fenton took several clean white smocks off of the hooks by the door and began handing them out to Scrooge, Della, Launchpad and the kids. “You’ll need to put these on before we go inside.” Fenton began pulling on his smock. “The bridge’s components are built to the smallest possible tolerances that we can measure. The slightest speck of dust could affect the functioning of the bridge.” After Scrooge, Della, Launchpad and the kids had finished pulling on their smocks, Fenton placed his hand on the biometric palm scanner next to the door. The scanning plate glowed blue and beeped. The same flat electronic voice said, “Crackshell-Cabrera, Fenton, access granted.” The outer door opened with an almost silent swish. They stepped into the chamber within. Fenton pushed a button on a panel next to the inner door and the outer door closed. He pushed a second button and they felt a blast cool air, then heard gentle sucking noise as the air in the room was recycled. The inner door swished open.  
The interior of the clean room was absolutely spotless. The walls, floor and ceiling shone immaculately under the bright overhead lights. As Scrooge, Della, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby and Launchpad followed Fenton into the room they all squinted momentarily as their eyes adjusted to the bright light reflecting off of the walls and floor. Several work carts bearing tools, diagnostic equipment and computers were scattered around the perimeter of the room. In the centre of the room stood a pair of vertical black rectangles. They were six feet tall, three feet wide and placed four feet apart from each other. They stood a foot off the floor on a raised circular platform. A thick power cable snaked from the platform to appeared to be some kind of generator standing in a corner. It hummed quietly and green and blue lights blinked in sequence on its face. A thin figure stood with his back to them muttering and inputting data into a tablet. At the quiet click of Scrooge’s cane on the concrete floor, the figure turned in annoyance and began to say, “I don’t know who you are and you got in here-“  
“Good morning, Gyro,”said Scrooge calmly.  
Gyro Gearloose gave Scrooge his full attention.“Good morning,” he said. “I see you read my report.”  
“Of course, I read it,” replied Scrooge. “I read everything that relates to McDuck Enterprises. This is truly a remarkable accomplishment. You and Fenton have my most heartfelt congratulations on your achievement.”  
“Yes, well, Fenton may have helped a little,” said Gyro. He cast a suspicious eye over Huey, Dewey, Louie and Webby. “The little people can stay, but they can’t touch anything.” Louie was poking around some cryogenic coolant tanks in a corner. Dewey and Webby were looking at the generator in the opposite corner. Huey was examining the bridge itself. He pulled the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook out from under his baseball hat and began flipping through it again.  
“Ummm…..Dr. Gearloose,” he began hesitantly, “I have some questions about the bridge, according the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook, a stable wormhole requires the energy of a neutron star to hold open the-“  
Gyro didn’t let Huey finish his question. “The Junior Woodchuck Guidebook was written by small-minded people who have no idea what they are talking about. The mirror utilizes negative matter to stabilize the event horizon.”  
Huey’s eyes widened. “You figured out negative matter,” he spluttered in amazement. “But how did you do that. Negative matter violates the laws of physics as we know them.”  
Gyro sighed in annoyance. “Alright, I’ll just show you shall I?” He turned back to the tablet in his hand and swiped aside the calculations that he had been working on. He tapped open a different app and his fingers began dancing over the computer screen. As soon as he began inputting commands into the tablet, the overhead lights flicked from white to a deep electric blue and klaaxons blared loudly. Dewey, Louie and Webby stopped what they had been doing and looked around.  
“What ever it is, I didn’t touch anything,” said Louie.  
“What’s happening to the bridge?” asked Webby. She pointed at the centre of the room. In the deep blue haze that had descended over the room, the tendrils of energy writhing between the two black rectangles seemed extra bright. A rod telescoped upward from the platform bearing a pair of curved panels. It began to rotate, slowly and first, then faster and faster until it was a spinning blur. It pulled the writhing tendrils of energy toward wrapping them around itself. A needle thin beam of energy shot down from the ceiling. There was a loud noise like a thunderclap. A bright flash of white light caused everyone to shield their eyes. When the noise and light faded away, they were met with an impossible sight. It was as if they were looking through a window at two boys in a suburban backyard sitting under a tree, on a bright sunny, summer day.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo Murphy’s Life is a direct continuation of the canonical events of Milo Murphy’s Law. Phineas and Ferb are waiting for Perry the Platypus to re-appear after disappearing a week ago. Milo is forced to endure the unexpected side effects of the Murphy’s Lawinator while returning to Earth from Octalia with his friends.

Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher sat in the shade of a tall tree in their suburban backyard in Danville on a sunny afternoon. Phineas sighed morosely. He was ordinarily an optimistic and outgoing boy, but the disappearance of his beloved pet platypus had saddened him deeply. It had been several days since Perry had disappeared and there been no sign of him. Phineas had known Perry to seemingly vanish on more than one occasion before, but he always turned up eventually. Phineas wondered, for what seemed like the hundredth time, where Perry might have gone. “I hope Perry is OK,” he said out loud to no one in particular. They had systematically searched Danville to no avail.  
“Well,” said Ferb hesitantly, as though he were about to say something sacrilegious, “he was just a platypus. He didn’t do very much.”  
Phineas said nothing at this uncharacteristic comment from his stepbrother. Ordinarily, Ferb barely said two words a day. The two boys were rarely separated from each other and could read each other’s thoughts and moods without having saying so much as a word to each other. They were so attuned to what the other was thinking and feeling that to outsiders it often seemed as if Phineas and Ferb were two halves of the same person.  
A girl with a round face and shoulder length black hair poked her head through Phineas and Ferb’s backyard gate. “Hi, Phineas,” she said, “what are you do-“ She stopped talking upon seeing the two boys sitting under the tree and looking morose.  
“Oh, hi, Isabella,” said Phineas glumly. “We’re waiting for Perry to come home.”  
“You mean, he still hasn’t come yet?” she asked.  
“No,” replied Phineas. “Its been almost a week. I hope he’s OK, where ever he is.”  
Poor Phineas, thought Isabella. He looks so lost without Perry.Isabella had always had had a soft spot for Phineas and didn’t like to see him upset. She walked into the backyard and sat down in the shade of the tree so that Phineas sandwiched between Isabella and Ferb. She took his hand in hers. Phineas looked surprised.  
“Isabella, I-“ he began to say. She had never held his hand and he didn’t know how to react to her gesture.  
“It’s OK, Phineas,” she said. “You don’t need to say anything.”  
He gave her a grateful smile. “Thanks, Isabella,” he said. It was the first time he had smiled in several days. “I really appreciate it.”

The flight from Octalia back to Earth had only taken a week, but to Milo it seemed like several lifetimes. There had been no way to calibrate the Murphy’s Lawinator that had been built by Melissa and Doofenshmirtz. As a result, there had been no way to anticipate any unexpected side effects that using the Murphy’s Lawinator might have. The longer the Murphy’s Lawinator had been on, the more it had effected Milo. The effects of the Murphy’s Lawinator had on Milo had begun to manifest on the first full day after they had left Octalia. The initial effect had been minor. Milo’s pinky finger on his left hand had gone slightly numb, but he had eventually started to experience headaches, dizzy spells, muscle cramps and joint pain. He could feel all of the places where the Octalians had healed his broken bones and it made walking difficult. They had discussed turning off the Murphy’s Lawinator, at least temporarily, but had decided against it. In an attempt to minimize his discomfort, Zack and Melissa had scavenged the ship and rigged up a makeshift hammock for Milo to lie in. It hadn’t really helped, but Milo appreciated their efforts all the same. Earth loomed large in the window. With some difficulty, Milo extracted himself from his hammock. He got up and walked rather unsteadily to the window. The planet filled most of the window and Milo could see from pole to pole in a single glance. They were crossing the terminator from night into day. The transition for darkness to light was drawn across the planet as if with a ruler and happened with the suddenness of flipping on a light switch. Puffy white clouds dotted the oceans and islands were scattered here and there like crumbs of land. Milo momentarily forgot his aches and pains at the sight in front of him. Then a wave of dizziness hit him and he slumped against the control console.  
Zack took hold of Milo’s shoulders and steadied him before he could fall. “Are you feeling OK, Milo?” he asked. Zack had to work to keep his concern out of his voice. Milo had been through a lot and it was starting show.   
Milo took a deep breath and nodded. “I’ll be fine.”   
Zack shook his head. “No you won’t,” he said. He steered Milo back to his hammock and gently pushed him down into it. “We’ll be home soon, but you should stay off your feet for now.”   
As soon as he said this, the view out of the window suddenly slanted sharply to the left and Zack and Milo heard the pitch of the background hum change slightly. The two boys felt themselves settle slightly as though a weight had been settled on to their shoulders. In the distance, the horizon began to rise up toward the top of the window then disappeared. As they sank lower into the atmosphere, tendrils of ionized gas played across the windscreen as the outer hull began to heat up due to the friction of re-entry.  
They burst out of a low cloud bank on the outskirts of Danville and arced into a wide circle. The ship settled to a stop and hovered in mid-air before lowering gently to the ground. They stepped outside. After being cooped on an alien starship for a week and on Octalia before that, it felt good to see green grass and feel the breeze on their faces again.

By the time Zack and Melissa walked Milo home, Milo was practically dead on his feet. He had been waylaid by the vagaries of Murphy’s Law for a day or two on several previous occasions, but he had never been gone for this long before. His older sister, Sara, practically flew at him, shouting, “Milo! Think god, are you all right? Where did you go?”  
Milo winced a little as she threw her arms around him. At the same time he heard the usual clatter of various small objects falling to the floor as a result of Murphy’s Law. “I’m OK,” he said. “I’m just kind of tired.” He extricated himself from her embrace and head up stairs. He didn’t remember anything after the knob to his bedroom door coming off in his hand.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo Murphy’s Life is a direct continuation of the canonical events of Milo Murphy’s Law. Milo’s friends have been worried about him as he has slept off the effects of the Murphy’s Lawinator. Cavendish and Dakota think that he might be the target of a future kidnapping attempt due to his negative probability field.

Milo slept for an entire day. When he next woke up, it was mid-afternoon. He had fallen asleep in his clothes. When he got out of bed he found that a day of sleep had done him a world of good. He felt some residual stiffness, but most of the aches and pains that had been brought on by exposure the Murphy’s Lawinator had mostly dissipated. He got out bed and pulled his housecoat from the back of the bedroom door. The coat hook fell from the back of the door and landed on the carpet with a dull thud. He bent over, picked it up and put it on the small bookcase next to his bedroom door. The bookcase collapsed. For a moment, Milo, debated stopping and putting back together, but decided he would do it later. He stumped down the hall to the bathroom, open the door and went inside. Milo shut the door, locked it and proceeded to start pulling off his clothes. Soon he was completely undressed. He left his sweater vest, golf-shirt, body armour, underwear, socks and shoes in a pile by the door. Milo turned to look at himself in the bathroom mirror over the sink. He was round shouldered. His knees and elbows were scarred from all the times he had fallen on to concrete or asphalt due to some unexpected occurrence of Murphy’s Law.Years of dodging Murphy’s Law had left Milo’s thin frame fit, if not exactly muscular. Faded bruises from his experiences on Octalia had left his chest and back a fade patchwork of purple and yellow blotches. Milo turned away from his reflection in the bathroom mirror, which promptly shattered and stepped past the toilet toward the shower. He pushed aside the shower curtain, reached into the shower and turned on the water. It came gushing out of the faucet and splashed over Milo’s feet. He turned the temperature up, almost as hot as he could stand it, and pulled the stopper. The water coming out of the faucet slowed to a thin trickle. There was a loud gurgling noise from behind the bathroom wall and a second later hot water came blasting out of the shower head. Milo felt the piping hot water hitting his body, running through his hair and down his chest and back. He stood under the hot water, letting it seep into his pores, The hot water felt good on Milo’s various contusions. He stood under the torrent for what seemed like a long time, letting the bathroom fill with steam. Eventually, the water began to turn cold. Milo turned off the water and got out of the shower. He towelled himself dry and pulled on his housecoat. He turned to the bathroom mirror to pull a comb through his wet and tousled hair, then remembered that mirror had broken. Milo stepped carefully across the broken glass. He opened the bathroom door and stepped out into the hall. He walked back down the hall to his bedroom, accompanied by the clatter of pictures falling off the wall. Milo pushed open his bedroom door, stepped inside and shut it. He turned to the mirror on the back of his closet door and ran a comb through his wet hair. He then pulled open the closet door, which came off in his hand. He set it aside and began to rummage through his closet, pulling out a sweater vest, a golf shirt and a pair of shorts. Milo then opened a drawer and pulled out socks and underwear. As he pulled on his clothes, Milo’s stomach rumbled is and he suddenly realized that he was very hungry. He went out into the hall and began to make his way downstairs to the kitchen.

As soon as he reached to top of the stairs, Milo put his foot through the top stair. He pulled his foot out and proceeded downstairs into the kitchen. When he got to the bottom of the stairs he found Zack, Melissa, Amanda and his older sister, Sara sitting around the kitchen table, along with his parents.   
“Afternoon, Milo,” said his Martin. ”It’s good to see you up and around.”  
“Oh, hi Dad,” said Milo.  
“Milo,” said Amanda, “everyone’s been so worried about you.” For a second, Amanda looked as though she wanted to throw herself at Milo, the way Sara had. Then the moment passed and she got up, walked around the table and gave him a hug. Milo hugged her back, and as he did, suddenly realized that he had missed her, “It’s good to have you back safely,” she said. And then she kissed him. Milo blushed.  
For a second, Milo didn’t respond, then his brain seemed to click into gear and he stammered, “I-uhhh-thanks, Amanda. It’s good to be back.” Milo’s stomach rumbled loudly again, and he remembered why he had come downstairs. He walked over to the refrigerator and pulled open the door. The door handle came off in Milo’s hands. He laid the door handle aside, opened the refrigerator door and proceeded to start rummaging through its contents, pulling out bread, ham, Swiss cheese, lettuce and a tomato. He assembled his sandwich and sat down at the table with everyone else. Milo took a big bite. He was famished.  
“So, Milo,” began Melissa, “how are you feeling?”  
“Yeah, we were worried about you,” said Zack, “You went through a lot.”  
Milo’s father nodded his head at Zack, Melissa and Amanda. “They showed up first thing this morning-“  
“And said they wouldn’t leave until they made sure you were all right,” finished Sara.  
Milo looked from his family to his friends. He didn’t know what to say to that, expect to stammer, “I-ummm-thanks guys.” He looked at Zack and Melissa. “What about the two you?” he asked, “Weren’t your parents worried?”  
“Of course,” replied Melissa, “my dad’s a firefighter, remember?”  
“Both of our parents called the police,” continued Zack, “but when they told the police that the last person we had been seen with was you, the police just said that we’d all turn up eventually.”  
Martin chuckled. “Yeah, the police know all about Murphy’s Law. Someday Milo will have to tell you all about the penguin incident.”  
Milo suddenly looked a little embarrassed. “Dad, I though we agreed to never speak of the penguin incident again,” he said.  
“Oh, sorry Milo, I forgot.”  
“Where did the three of you go?” asked Amanda, “you disappeared for almost a week.”  
Now it was Milo’s turn to chuckle. “Oh, yeah, this was a weird one, even for me,” he said. Over the course of the next half hour Milo, Zack and Melissa took it turns to tell Amanda, Sara and Milo’s parents the whole story of their various encounters with the Octalians going all the way back to when they had stolen a sample of Milo’s DNA when he had been very, very sick and tried to replace him with a robot. “A shoddy robot,” Milo had interjected around bites of his sandwich.“Is it really too much to ask that the mysterious aliens replace me with a robot that actually works properly?”  
Zack laughed. “Yeah, when it called us losers, that was kind of a give away that something was up.”  
“So, how were you able to get home with Murphy’s Law?” asked Amanda.  
“That was all thanks to Melissa and Doof,” replied Milo.  
“Well, more Doof than me,” said Melissa, feeling slightly guilty. “We were able to cobble together a Murphy’s Lawinator-“  
Amanda looked confused. “A-I’m sorry, Melissa, what is a Murphy’s Lawinator?”  
“It was something that we built to cancel out Murphy’s Law,” replied Melissa. “Dr. Doofenshmirtz is actually pretty good at coming up with these weirdly specific gadgets.”  
Zack shot Milo an apologetic look. “The only problem is that most of them don’t work very well.”  
“Yeah,” agreed Melissa, “and this one was no exception.”  
Sara looked at her brother. “What did it do?” she asked.  
“It canceled out Milo’s negative probability field,” responded Zack.  
Milo’s father looked delighted. “You mean you three figured how to-“  
Milo cut his father off. “Not exactly, Dad,” he said.  
Melissa nodded in agreement, “Yeah like I said, Mr. Murphy, it worked, but not very well.” She paused. “There were side effects.”  
“What sort of side effects?” asked Milo’s father.  
Milo waved a hand airily. “Oh, you know, just the usual side effects of every strange device built by a former mad scientist, numbness, headaches, fatigue, joint pain, but I feel much better now.”  
“Oh,” said Sara, “no wonder you looked so ragged yesterday.”  
Milo’s father put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “We’re just glad to have you back safely.”  
“Thanks Dad,” said Milo.

Cavendish and Dakota stood under the hot sun in an empty field on the edge of town. Cavendish was fuming. “Outrageous,” he muttered, stabbing a piece of garbage. He deposited it into the garbage bag in his hand, “Simply unbelievable!”  
Dakota stopped in the act of picking up a piece of garbage and turned to face his partner. “Cavendish, you need to let it go.”  
“I know I should let it go,” said Cavendish, “but I can’t.”  
Dakota sighed. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “It’s Milo. He’s a likeable kid. What are you gonna do?” He could guess where this was going. Cavendish had already gone rouge once, after having unknowingly witness Milo’s initial abduction by the Octalians. Dakota hadn’t believed Cavendish at the time and his skepticism had almost ended their friendship. On top of that they had received a formal reprimand from their supervisor, Mr. Block. “Boys, you were take of off time agent duty because of your inability to follow orders,” he had said genially. “And now you’ve gone haring off to an alien planet without filing the proper paperwork.”  
“But, Sir,” Cavendish had protested, “the boy who was abducted was a rather unusual case-“  
Mr. Block had not been willing to let Cavendish finish, “I’m sorry boys,” he had said. “You went off-world, which is a clear violation of your mission mandate. I have no choice to give you a formal reprimand.” Cavendish’s communicator had beeped, indicating an incoming message, no doubt it was their formal reprimand. “If you violate your mission mandate again, I will have no choice but to send to Ancient Rome, where you’ll be assigned cleaning latrines. Have a good day, boys.” Mr. Block had signed off.  
Cavendish savagely speared a piece of alien garbage. He took a deep breath to calm himself and looked at Dakota. “Yes,” he said, “Milo is a perfectly pleasant young man and the incident with Octalians wasn’t his fault, but they cloned him, replaced him with a robot and attempted to kidnap him twice.”  
Dakota shrugged. “They were desperate,” he said. “They should have just asked him for his help. You know what Milo is like. He practically bends over backwards for people, even people who don’t really want him around.”  
“Yes,” agreed Cavendish, “that is one of Milo’s many admirable qualities, but that’s not the point.”  
Dakota looked confused. ”Well then, I don’t understand,” he said, “what are you getting at?”  
Cavendish sighed. “Don’t you see?” he asked. “The Octalians were sufficiently interested in Milo’s negative probability field to be willing to kidnap him twice.”  
“Uhhhhh…….Isn’t that a little dark?” asked Dakota, a note of skepticism creeping into his voice.  
“Considering what they put him through, no I don’t think it is,” responded Cavendish.  
Dakota looked confused. “So, what are you getting at?” he asked. “Are you saying that you expect somebody to take Milo again? Isn’t that kind of a stretch?”  
“Ordinarily, I would say yes it is,” replied Cavendish, “but most people don’t spontaneously cause things to happen the way Milo does.”  
“Which is-“ began Dakota.  
“-not his fault,” finished Cavendish, “but I must consider the possibility that there are others who might be interested in Milo and have less than noble intentions.”  
“OK,” replied Dakota slowly, “so what are you suggesting, that we follow Milo?”  
Cavendish shook his head. “No, not exactly,” he said. “Milo is capable of looking after himself, but we should keep an eye out for any unusual occurrences around Danville.”  
Dakota laughed. “You want us to watch for weird stuff around town, with Milo walking around? Milo causes half the strange stuff that happens around Danville.”  
“Well, I never said that it would be easy,” replied Cavendish, “but-“  
Dakota shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, what are you gonna do,” he said, “it’s Milo.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo Murphy’s Life is the direction continuation of the canonical events of Milo Murphy’s Law. Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda go back to school after the events of the Octalian Incident. Phineas Flynn, his stepbrother Ferb Fletcher and their friend Baljeet Tjinder are designing an Einstein-Rosen Bridge for their quantum physics class at the Danville Academy for Gifted Children.

The other kids were staring at Milo as he walked from his house down the street to the bus stop the next morning. Melissa, Zack and Amanda were already waiting at the bus stop in the early morning sunshine. Milo waved at them. “Hi guys,” he said brightly.  
“Morning, Milo,” said Amanda.  
Milo heard somebody snort loudly behind him. He turned to see who had made the noise and found a boy with black hair and rimless glasses looking incredulously at him. “Oh, hi, Bradley,” he said in a slightly flat voice.  
Bradley Nicholson stared at Milo in annoyance. “Typical,” he exclaimed, waving his arms, one of which ended in a woody tendril, “just typical, Milo disappears and everyone welcomes him back like he’s some sort of hero or something.” For reasons that Milo had never really understood, Bradley had never liked him.  
“Hi, Amanda,” said Milo, ignoring Bradley’s outburst. Milo felt a large, heavy hand land on his shoulder. He turned to see who it belonged to and found himself staring at the broad, fleshy face of Mort Schaeffer. “Hi Mort,” said Milo genially, “how’s your blocked chakra?”   
“Hi Milo,” said Mort. “My chakras are balanced again, thanks for asking. I figured you three would turn up again. I felt emanations from my rose quartz.” The quarterback for the Jefferson Middle School Geckos, Mort was a broad shouldered, barrel chested boy a couple of inches taller and a good ten pounds heavier than Milo.   
“Well, it’s nice to know I was missed,” said Milo.  
“Oh, yeah,” said Chad Van Coff, appearing at Mort’s side as if out of nowhere, “we noticed you were gone, because Bradley kept complaining about how quiet everything was without you around.”  
Milo was slightly confused. “Really?” he asked, “because Bradley has never exactly liked me.”  
Mort nodded, “Oh yeah,” he said, “he put out all kinds of bad emanations.” Mort pointed to a spot in the middle of his forehead. “I could really feel it in my Third Eye. I had to spend a lot of time meditating on my second chakra.” Mort shrugged. “I offered to show him some relaxation techniques from my yoga class, but he wasn’t interested.”   
Milo’s conversation with Mort was interrupted by the squealing of tires on asphalt. Milo turned along with everyone else to watch as the school bus came barreling around the corner. It rode up on two wheels as it skidded into the turn, then fell heavily back on to all four tires with a distant thud. It sped down the street toward where all the kids were standing and Milo’s hand whipped out, grabbing the back of Zack’s belt and pulling him backward out of the way. The bus careened off the road and hit a nearby tree with a loud crunch of rending metal.  
Zack uttered a startled, “hey what the-“ then turned to see who had grabbed him and found Milo standing behind him. He smiled sheepishly. “Thanks, Milo.”  
Milo shrugged and smiled at Zack, “anytime,” he said.  
Bradley snorted again and rolled his eyes. “Well, it looks like the Milo show is back on the air.”  
Amanda pulled out her phone and began flicking through her schedule. “We should get going if we don’t want to be late for school,” she said. “I only allow fifteen minutes to get from the bus stop to school and it’ll take twenty minutes to walk.” She set off without waiting to see if the others were following her.  
Melissa stared at Amanda’s retreating back. “Well, it looks like we’re walking to school today.”  
Milo hefted his heavy backpack higher on to his shoulders. “At least it’s nice morning for a walk,” he said.

The sun shone through the large windows of the engineering lab at the Danville Academy for Gifted Children, casting Phineas and his drafting board in a large square of bright sunlight. The mop of unruly red hair on top of his head made him look as though he was on fire. He frowned, chewing on the end of his drafting pencil, and stared at the half completed set of drawings. He turned away from his half finished plans and bent over without getting out of his chair. Pausing momentarily to give Perry a scratch behind the ear, Phineas rummaged in his bag and pulled a battered looking project book from his bag. It was full of sketches, scribbled notes and calculations. Phineas quickly rifled through it until he found the page he wanted. He studied the drawing on the page carefully for several minutes, then made several additions to the plans on the drafting board, which consisted primarily of a pair of upright carbon fibre panels on a raised platform. Phineas waved to get Ferb’s attention. “Ferb,” he said, “hey, Ferb, come over here and tell me what you think.”  
A boy with tousled dark green hair and a slightly cocked eyed appearance got off his chair and walked over to where Phineas was working. Ferb studied Phineas’ half completed technical drawings with a critical eye. “Hmmmm,” he said thoughtfully, “yes this looks good.” Ferb rattled of a list of additional modifications.  
Phineas flipped to a blank page in his project book and began scribbling. He looked at his notes and then back at the plans on the drafting board in front of him. He pointed at several places on the drawings. “We could place muon traps here, here and here,” he said.  
Ferb studied the indicated positions carefully. “That would interfere with the antiproton array,” he said.  
Phineas thought for a moment. “Maybe we need some sort of shielding for the antiproton array?” he suggested.  
Ferb nodded, “yes that would seem to be a reasonable solution,” and he rattled off a list of possible shielding materials.   
Phineas scribbled more notes and then studied the drawings again. “Hmmm,” he said after several minutes contemplation, “this is really more Baljeet’s area than mine.” He turned again and waved to a brown skinned Indian boy what was smaller that he was. “Hey, Baljeet,” he called, “come over here for a second.”  
Baljeet Tjinder walked over to where Phineas and Ferb were examining Phineas’ drawings. As soon as he saw them, Baljeet shook his head. “These are wrong,” he said in his high pitched voice. He pointed at the locations of the muon traps, “if you put these here,” he pointed to a different of locations, then pointed to the antiproton array, “and put this over here,” he pointed to another location, “they will not interfere with each other and you are more likely to achieve a stable event horizon.”  
Phineas scribbled out some calculations. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s much better.” He turned his attention back to the unfinished set plans on his drafting board and began to make Baljeet’s modifications.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo Murphy’s Life is a direct continuation of the canonical events of Milo Murphy’s Law. Heinz Doofenshimrtz has an encounter with Milo while grappling with his past and attempting to continue on his path to becoming Professor Time

The rain pounded against the roof of Heinz Doofenshmirtz’ shed, in Milo Murphy’s backyard. It was almost one in the morning and he was staring at a white board full of complex calculations. He frowned at it, as if something was missing. After a long moment he turned to Perry, who was standing, on top of a pile of boxes examining the white board. He chittered his teeth at Doofenshmirtz, who sighed.  
“Yeah, I know Perry the Platypus,” said the disheveled looking scientist, “but the möbius loop collapses almost immediately, look.” Doofenshmirtz picked up a pad of paper, scribbled out some calculations and handed them to the platypus. Perry took them and studied them intently. He shook his his head, chittered at Doofenshmirtz, picked up a pen and wrote a new set of equations. He handed them back to Doofenshmirtz, who took them and examined them closely. He muttered under his breath, “Hmmmm….well, perhaps….maybe if….and then….yes.” He looked up and turned to Perry, “yes,” he said excitedly, “that might work.” Doofenshmirtz walked over to the white board and wiped it clean. He picked a marker and began to hurriedly write out Perry’s calculations, pausing here and there only to make slight modifications. The mathematical equations that Perry had written describe a modified möbius loop which would allow a properly shielded vehicle to travel along the length of the loop, stop at any point and return the temporal co-ordinates of its starting point. Of course, mapping out the mathematics of temporal physics was easy, actually building a vehicle that could safely navigate the time stream would be much, much harder. It would require facilities and precision equipment and funding and…..he pushed the thoughts away with difficulty. Perry had generously arranged to provide Doofenshmirtz with all of his OWCA pay as seed money for Doofenshmirtz’ research, and he was grateful for that. Doofenshmirtz had owned a large building in downtown Danville, however, his building had been destroyed by the Pistachions when they had tried to manipulate the timeline and take over the world. As a result he had lost his building, all of his personal effects, his equipment and most of his inators. Because of this, Doofenshmritz was living in a shed in the backyard of a thirteen year old boy, who by all accounts, including his own, was a walking catastrophe.   
Doofenshmirtz pushed the thought away with difficulty. He knew he should be grateful to Milo and his family for taking him in and giving him a place to stay, but thoughts of his childhood came bubbling to the surface any way. Heinz Doofensmirtz had been born in Gimmelshtump, Drusselstein. From an early age Doofenshmirtz, had shown considerable intelligence, which had gone unrecognized by his family and teachers. The other children at school had claimed that the young Doofensmhirtz had smelled like pigs, and consequently the intelligent young boy had had no friends. As a result of his isolation Heinz had retreated into himself, focusing on building his inators, which became increasingly complex over time. When he was ten, Heinz was taken the Gimmelshtump Public Wetness Maker on one of the alternate Thursdays in which it was full of water. In the traditional rite of passage, Doofenshmirtz has been made to climb to the top of the tallest diving board and jump into the water below, however upon reaching the edge, his nerves had failed. Disappointed, his parents had disowned him. Shortly thereafter, Heinz’ father had brought home a puppy, which as if the emphasize the point, he had named Only Son. Only Son had gone on to become a champion show dog and had brought fame and wealth to Doofenshmirtz’ father, however, for Heinz there was nothing but misery. The family lawn gnome had been confiscated and Heinz had been dressed as a lawn gnome and forced to stand in front of his parents’ house in its place. Around the same time, Doofenshmirtz’ mother announced that she was expecting again. Convinced that the baby would be a girl, his mother had sewn a large number of dresses. To their surprise, the baby had been a boy, who, they had named Roger.  
Roger quickly became the darling of his parents’ eye, while Heinz continued to receive nothing but neglect. He was forced to wear the girl’s clothing that his mother had made while she was pregnant with Roger, which had led to even more ridicule from the other children. In an effort to win his parents affection, Heinz had spent his entire allowance for a year on a teddy bear, which he had given to his mother, who immediately gave it to Roger. As Heinz grew into his teenage years he began to develop an interest in shadow puppetry, and as young man was eventually sent by his parents to seek his fortune in America, where he developed an interest in art. For awhile he struggled to find his muse, but eventually painted a masterpiece, at least until Roger spilled food on his work. Discouraged, Heinz abandoned art and attempted to become a poet, however he met with little success and his career as a poet proved to be short lived. He attempted to reinvent himself yet again, this time selling bratwursts. When this failed, Doofenshmirtz became determined to get back everyone who had ever wronged him and enrolled in evil school, which he failed after failing to blow up the moon in an effort to impress his teacher Dr. Gervaarlik. Around the same time, he briefly dated a young up and coming singer named Linda Flynn, but the relationship didn’t last. A short time later, he married and fathered a daughter named Vanessa, but this relationship also hadn’t lasted.   
In the intervening sixteen years, Doofenshmirtz has devoted himself to doing evil. During this time his activities had come to the attention of the Organization without a Cool Acronym. OWCA had assigned Perry to thwart Doofenshmirtz’ many evil schemes. In spite of their often combative relationship, Doofenshmirtz had come to view the platypus as a friend. He supposed that was because he had always known where he stood with Perry. After OWCA had offered him the choice of prison for his many misdeeds, or community service, Perry had been assigned to keep Doofenshmirtz out of trouble. The previous year, shortly before he had lost his building, he had an encounter with a future version of himself, as well with a pair of time travellers from the late 22nd Century. He had been astonished to learn that he would eventually become the inventor of time travel. He stared around the cramped and cluttered shed. The rain drummed like incessant fingers on the medal roof. Boxes of inator parts were piled haphazardly in the corners and mathematical equations and sketched designs for new inators were taped to the walls. An unmade bed occupied the majority of one wall and a workbench occupied the majority of the opposite wall. Doofenshmirtz turned his attention back to the calculations on the whiteboard. They seemed to stare inscrutably back at him. Could he actually do this? he wondered, unlock the complexities of time travel in just fifteen years. For a second it seemed as though his hunched frame became even more round shouldered, as if was trying to hold up all the expectations that had ever been heaped on Doofensmirtz and wasn’t quite succeeding. He rubbed his eyes and stared and the equations again. Perry chittered at him.   
Doofensmhirtz turned to face the platypus. “Yes, it’s late, Perry the Platypus,” he said. “Perhaps one more pot of coffee.” He picked up an empty coffee pot balanced unsteadily on top of a pile of books, walked to the door and went out into the rain.

The walk from his shed across the yard to the back door into the kitchen only took a couple of minutes, but in the pouring rain, Doofenshmritz was immediately drenched. He reached the kitchen door, pulled it open and went inside. A light over the stove cast a dim gloom over the room. He clicked on the overhead light and rummaged through the pantry looking for the instant coffee and the coffee filters. He quickly found them and filled up the coffee maker sitting next to the toaster oven at the end of the kitchen counter. He placed the coffee pot in the empty receptacle, pushed the button and waited for the coffee to brew. As he was waiting he heard the clatter of small objects hitting the floor overhead, followed by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. A second later, Milo sauntered casually into the kitchen. He was dressed in a pair of gym shorts, a faded Dr. Zone T-shirt and bare feet. As was always the case, his backpack was slung over his back. Without taking it off, he pulled open the flap on top and produced a grabber arm. He managed to pry open the refrigerator door, this time without breaking off the handle, reached inside and with the arm, pulled out six cans of Pep, depositing them into his backpack, one at a time.  
“Oh, hi Doof,” he said causally. Distant chatter and laughter drifted downstairs through Milo’s open bedroom door. He had invited Zack, Melissa, Amanda, Phineas and Ferb over for a sleepover.  
“Hi, Milo,” said Doofenshmirtz. His pot of coffee was almost full and the coffee maker gurgled loudly. Doofenshmirtz watched as Milo finished rummaging the fridge and turned to go back upstairs to his friends. “Uhhh…..Milo…..”he began awkwardly.  
The thin, round shouldered boy turned to face the formerly evil scientist. “Yeah, Doof,” said Milo expectantly.  
“Ummmm……look, Milo,” continued Doofenshmirtz, “I never…..I mean…..I’m not very good at this sort of thing, but I never thanked you…..for well…..” he trailed off into an awkward silence.  
“Oh,” replied Milo, “well if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have been able to stop the Pistachions, and your building getting blown up was partially the result of Murphy’s Law, so I guess in a sense we owe you one.” He turned to go back up stairs, to where his friends were waiting for him.  
As Doofensmirtz watched Milo turned to leave, he suddenly thought of his own chaotic childhood again and how this skinny kid calmly lived in the middle of a hurricane of chaos. Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “how do you do it, Milo?”  
Milo stopped and turned face Doofenshmritz again. “How do I do what?” he asked.  
Doofenshmirtz looked stricken. He wasn’t sure at all why he was having this conversation with Milo. He felt as though he was asking the teenager to divulge an intimate secret. He wanted to say, “how do you live a normal life?” but couldn’t bring himself to actually say it. He started stammer, but Milo seemed to read his mind.  
“Well, I had a really good babysitter,” replied Milo, after a second’s thought. The question had surprised him. No one had ever actually asked him how he managed to live with Murphy’s Law.“Veronica taught me a lot. She gave me my backpack.” He nodded at the heavy backpack still slung over his shoulders, “and Dad has been really helpful too.” Milo’s father had also been born with Murphy’s Law and Milo had come to greatly value his father’s advice and guidance. He looked at Doofenshmritz. “Why do you want to know?” he asked.   
For a second, Doofensmhirtz looked as if he were about to confess his doubts about his future as Professor Time fifteen years from now, but he pushed the thought away. He was definitely not having that conversation with Milo. “Never mind,” he said dejectedly. “It doesn’t matter,” He picked the now full coffee pot.  
Milo gave him a searching look. “Well, OK,” he said after a long moment. He turned and went back up stairs.  
Doofenshmirtz went back out into the pouring rain.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo Murphy’s Life is a direct continuation of the canonical events of Milo Murphy’s Law. Milo’s friends stay for breakfast the morning after his sleep over.

As Milo walked back up stairs, his backpack loaded with drinks and snacks from the fridge, he paused to pick up the various family pictures that had fallen off the wall in his passing as he had gone downstairs to raid the fridge. As he proceeded down the hall past his sister’s bedroom, he noticed a chink of light spilling out from the gap under her door. He heard quiet giggles from the other side of the door. Sara was canoodling with Neal from the comic ship. Milo chuckled to himself and kept walking. He continued past the bathroom and stopped at his own door, which was opposite his parents’. Milo pushed open the door and went inside, just in time to hear Zack say “-and that was the story of the woodpecker incident,” amid a round of laughter. Diogee bounded over to him, knocking aside the game of Skiddley Whiffers that the six of them had been playing, sending the board and game pieces flying all over the room. He bent down and gave Diogee an affectionate scratch behind the ears. Diogee barked happily, wagged his stumpy tail and licked Milo’s hand. Milo pulled some dog treats out of his backpack. Diogee sniffed Milo’s closed hand and wagged his tail excitedly again. Milo opened his hand and a long pick tongue flicked out and scooped up the dog biscuits. Diogee crunched happily, licking the crumbs off of Milo’s open palm. Milo gave him another affectionate scratch. “Good boy, Diogee,” he said, then he pointed a dog bed in a corner. “I need you to go to bed, OK.” Diogee barked an affirmation then waddled over to the indicated corner, turned around several times, lay down and curled up in a furry ball.  
Milo turned face to Zack, Melissa, Amanda, Phineas and Ferb. He put down his backpack with a thud and sat down cross legged next to it. “Ok,” he said, opening the flap and rummaging inside, “who’s thirsty?” He reached inside and pulled out a can of Pep. It burst in his hand, covering him dark, sticky soda. “Whoops,” chuckled Milo. Milo reached around behind himself, and without getting up, tossed it across the room into the garbage can next to his desk with a flick of his wrist.  
Phineas watched him with an appraising eye. “Have you ever played baseball, Milo?” the younger boy asked. “You have a pretty good arm.” Phineas excelled at baseball, but then Phineas and Ferb excelled at practically everything.  
Zack and Melissa choked back laughter as Milo rummaged in his backpack for a towel to dry his face. “Milo? Play baseball?” replied Melissa, still laughing. “That sounds like a recipe for some missing teeth.” Melissa subconsciously ran her tongue over her teeth. Melissa had false front teeth because she had once been hit in the mouth with a baseball  
“Yeah, I don’t know, Phineas,” replied Milo, drying his face and putting the towel back in his backpack, “I tried baseball once, but after the incident with the Danville Tornados and the flock of sea gulls, well I decided that baseball wasn’t for me.” Milo reached into his backpack again, pulled out half a dozen chocolate pudding cups and began passing them around. As if on cue, one of them burst, covering Milo’s hand in sticky chocolate pudding. He licked the chocolatey glob off of his hand, pulled out his towel again and wiped the sticky residue off of his hand, then tossed the ruptured pudding cup into the trash can next to his desk, where it landed with a soft splat next to the burst pop tin. He reached into his backpack a third time and produced a box of plastic spoons, which he passed around without incident.

The sun started to come up during their fourth game of Skiddley Whiffers. Milo, Zack, Melissa, Amanda, Phineas and Ferb trooped downstairs to the kitchen amid a chorus of yawns, around 8:30. Milo was unsurprised to find his sister sitting at the far end of the table with Neal from the comic shop. They both looked tired but happy. Milo’s father was standing at the stove putting out a fire. Judging by the smell, Milo guessed that his father had tried cook everyone bacon and eggs, and that Murphy’s Law had intervened somehow. His mother was pulling pancake flour and a mixing bowl out of a cupboard.  
“Morning, everyone,” said Milo’s father brightly, “everyone have fun last night?”  
“Yeah, Dad,” replied Milo. “We had a good time.”  
“Where’s Doof?” asked Sara, “he’s usually up bright and early for breakfast.”  
Milo suddenly remembered his encounter with Doofenshmritz in the kitchen at one AM. “Oh, I ran into him in the middle of the night making a pot of coffee.” Milo stopped talking. In spite of his tiredness, he could vividly remember the conversation that Doof had tried to have with him. He didn’t really want to talk about it in front of Phineas, Ferb and Neal. Something of his thoughts must have flickered across his face, because he distinctly saw Zack and Melissa trade a significant look. A prickling sensation in the back of his skull, like an electric current, told him to expect them to ask him about it later.  
“So, where do you and Ferb go to school?” asked Milo’s mother as she set a plate loaded with a stack of pancakes in front of Phineas.  
“We go to the Danville Academy for Gifted Children,” answered Ferb as Phineas slathered maple syrup on his pancakes.   
For a second, Milo was slightly startled. Ferb had barely said two words all night. Next to him, Phineas momentarily stopped attacking his breakfast and shot his stepbrother a sly look, “slow down chatterbox,” he said with a grin.   
Ferb continued as if Phineas hadn’t spoken. “The Danville Academy for Gifted Children is a school for children of unusual intelligence.”  
“Oh,” said Milo’s father, “so what subjects do you study?” he asked.  
As if in answer Phineas reached into the pocket of his cargo shorts and pulled out a sleek black cube about the size of a large rubiks cube. He placed it on the table in front of him.  
“Our studies are largely self-directed,” Ferb continued. He gestured to the device sitting in front of Phineas. “This is a portable holographic projector that we designed for our computer science class.”  
Phineas pushed a button on the device and several lights glowed blue and red on its face. “Would you like to see a digital model of our quantum physics project?” he asked.  
Milo saw Zack, Melissa and Amanda trade astonished looks and then realized from the way they were looking at him that he was wearing the exact same expression. “Uhhhh……OK,” he said a little weakly.  
Phineas nodded and pulled out his phone. He tapped open an app and swiped through several menus, then tapped something on his screen. A grid of thin blue lines was laid over the kitchen. Phineas tapped something else and the kitchen was replaced by a room with completely blank white walls.  
Milo had to resist the urge pinch himself. He was still sitting at his own table with his half eaten stack of pancakes in front of him, but the rest of the house seemed to have disappeared. He opened his mouth to speak, but Zack beat him to the question.  
“Uhhhhh, Phineas, where are we?”  
“This is a digital clean room, Zack,” answered Phineas.  
“So, what do you need a clean room for?” asked Melissa.  
Phineas tapped and swiped on his phone again. The breakfast table disappeared and was replaced by a platform bearing a pair of upright carbon fibre panels.  
Milo looked at the holographic image hovering in front of him, then he looked at Phineas as Ferb rolled his eyes and said, “now you’re just showing off.”  
“So, what is this?” asked Milo gesturing to the hologram.  
“This is a model of an Einstein-Rosen Bridge,” answered Phineas.  
“And an Einstein-Rosenbridge would be-“ asked Zack, slightly confused.  
“More commonly referred to as a wormhole,” put in Ferb.  
“So, you designed an interactive model of a wormhole generator as a school science project,” said Melissa, clearly impressed. “Cool.”  
At that moment, the house, the kitchen, the table and Milo’s half eaten breakfast snapped back into existence courtesy of Murphy’s Law.  
Phineas laughed. “No, Melissa,” he said. “We built our digital model to test our theories before actually building a wormhole generator.”  
“Uhhhhhh…….aren’t you two a little young for a high energy quantum physics project?” asked Sara.  
“Yes. Yes we are,” said Phineas.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo Murphy’s Life is a direct continuation of the canonical events of Milo Murphy’s Law. Phineas and Ferb have invited Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda see their Einstein-Rosen Bridge. Murphy’s Law hits and things go very, very wrong.

As soon as the front door shut behind Phineas, Ferb and Neal, Amanda asked, “Milo, how do you know those two?”  
Milo, Zack and Melissa took turns telling Amanda about the Pistachion incident, which Milo realized, was a story none of them had ever told anyone before.  
“I think they do this sort of thing all the time,” said Milo.  
Melissa nodded. “Yeah, they knocked out the Murphy’s Law suit in no time flat.”  
“From the way Phineas talked last night,” said Zack, “you’d think a particle accelerator in the backyard was completely normal.”  
Milo shrugged. “Maybe, for Phineas and Ferb, it is.”  
“But how do they-“ began Amanda, when her phone buzzed. She had been about ask, “how do they afford all that stuff?” She pulled out her phone and began tapping and swiping through her schedule. “I’m sorry, Milo,” she said. “That was my Mom. She will be here to pick me up in five minutes.”  
“Oh, uh….OK,” said Milo. “I guess I’ll see you later then.”  
Amanda gave Milo a kiss on the cheek. “See you at school,” she said. Then she went out Milo’s front door.  
Milo flushed.

After Amanda left, Milo, Zack and Melissa trooped back up stairs to Milo’s bedroom, where they spent the rest of the morning cleaning up the mess the six of them had made during the night. It was only when they were almost finished, that Melissa asked, “so what was Doof doing in your kitchen last night?”  
“Making a pot of coffee,” replied Milo simply. Milo had expected this. For a second he wondered how much to tell them, or if he should even tell them anything at all. Then he pushed the idea away. Zack and Melissa were his closest friends.They deserved his honesty.  
“And that’s all?” asked Zack. “He was just making coffee?”  
“Well, yes, but-“ Milo’s voice trailed off.  
“But what?” asked Zack.   
Milo took a breath and slowly exhaled. “He talked to me, or at least he tried to.”  
“About what?”asked Melissa. She looked as if she already knew the answer.  
Milo felt the prickling sensation in the back of his skull again and he absentmindedly rubbed the rubbed the back of his scalp, as if to make it go away. “He tried ask me about Murphy’s Law,” Milo said at last.  
Zack and Melissa traded a look. Most of the people who knew Milo had heard the stories about the situations that Milo had gotten into and out of, moreover, they had often heard the stories of Milo’s misadventures directly from the hapless teenager himself. It was only natural that Milo’s friends would speculate about how Milo managed to navigate the unmitigated chaos that frequently beset him. As far as Zack and Melissa knew, no one ever openly asked Milo this question before.  
“So….what did he want to know?” asked Melissa.  
“Well,” amended Milo, “he didn’t ask me about Murphy’s Law or negative probability or anything like that.”  
Zack and Melissa traded another look. They were totally lost. They had both assumed that Doofenshmirtz, in his usual completely tactless way, had tried to ask Milo about his negative probability field for some reason related to his time travel research, as that was practically the only thing he thought about these days. Apparently that assumption was wrong and whatever conversation he had tried to have with Milo, had left Milo completely blindsided, which Melissa had to consider something of an achievement in an of itself, as Milo was usually very, very good at reading his surroundings.  
“So….what did he try to ask you?” asked Melissa a second time. Whatever question Doof had tactless tried to ask Milo, Melissa was quickly getting the impression that Milo had considered it a personal question and would have preferred to not to answer.  
“He tried to ask me how I live a normal life,” replied Milo at long last.  
“But you-“ Zack started to say. He had started to say, “but you don’t,” but had stopped. One of things that Zack had always admired most about Milo was his ability to put everyone before himself, especially when it came to shielding his friends from Murphy’s Law. Zack didn’t want to seem insensitive and hurt Milo’s feelings, when Milo clearly seemed to be vulnerable.  
Melissa, however, perhaps, as Milo’s oldest friend didn’t seem to be as concerned about unintentionalLy hurting Milo’s feelings. “Well, you don’t live a normal life,” she said. “You’re a Murphy.”  
“Yeah,” Zack nodded. “Maybe there are some things that just can’t be easily explained.”

“It’s time for danger, time for action, time for Dr. Zone!” Milo woke unexpectedly to the sound of his phone ringing early one morning a few weeks later. Blearily, he opened one eye, looking around for his ringing phone. “Chronological time is an abstraction, when you’re with Dr. Zone!” Milo groggily opened the other eye and looked at the alarm clock on the shelf next to his bed. It was broken. “He has one foot in the future and one foot in the past-“ Milo suddenly remembered that he had left his phone on his desk to recharge the night before. He pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed. He climbed down the ladder at the foot of the bed and straightened up. Milo clicked on his desk light and momentarily squinted in the sudden brightness. He picked up his phone and looked at the screen. Phineas Flynn-555-3141. Why would Phineas be calling him at, he checked the time, 6:30 in the morning? He tapped his screen, which cracked. “Phineas?” he asked trying to stifle a yawn, “what’s going? It’s 6:30. On the first day of summer vacation. What are you calling me for?”  
“Hi, Milo,” said the chipper voice on the other hand end. “Yeah, I know” said Phineas excitedly, “gotta make every minute count, anyway come by my house later today. I’ve got something to show you.” He hung up.  
No sooner had Phineas hung up than, Milo’s phone rang again. “Now what,” muttered Milo. He tapped his screen again. “Phineas-“ he began.  
Zack’s voice cut him off. “Hi, Milo,” he said, “did you just get a call from Phineas?”  
“Hi Zack,” replied Milo, “Yeah, I did.”  
“It’s the first day of summer action,” said Zack. “Does he not sleep or something?”  
“What did he want?” asked Milo.  
“To drop by his house,” answered Zack. “He said he wanted to show me something. You?”  
“He said the same thing to me too,” said Milo. As he spoke his phone pinged twice. Melissa and Amanda were trying to text him.  
“So, are you going to go over to his house?” asked Zack.  
Milo hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said, “I mean me and high energy physics…..” Milo let his voice trail off. He remembered the light show that Phineas had put on with his little tech toy. He could imagine the kinds of thing Phineas might want to show him.  
Zack seemed to sense Milo’s hesitation. “C’mon, Milo, you’ve been abducted by aliens-“  
“Twice,” Milo interjected, his voice edged with dry sarcasm.  
“-how dangerous can this be?”  
Milo decided that Zack had a point. Whatever Phineas and Ferb had cooked up couldn’t be worse than being asked to single handily save an alien planet. “I’ll see you there,” he said, and hung up. After Milo hung up, he pulled open a drawer in his desk and took out a new phone. He unwrapped it, took it out of the box and laid it in his desk. He quickly disassembled his old phone, took out the SIM card and slotted it into his new one, which he left on his desk to charge. He got up and walked down the hall to the bathroom with the usual clatter in his wake to shower and brush his teeth before going downstairs for breakfast.

After a quick breakfast, Milo walked out to the garage and took his bike down from the bike rack on the wally. He walked out to the driveway which was bathed in bright morning sunshine, hopped on his bike and peddled off in the direction of Phineas’ neighbourhood. The ride from Milo’s house to Phineas’ only took 20 minutes. Milo was only forced to detour by Murphy’s Law three times. Just a block from the end of his own street, Milo was forced to detour around a cement truck that had taken a corner too fast and overturned. Three blocks later, the ground collapsed beneath him and Milo ended up in the sewer, however, Milo had an excellent knowledge of the Danville sewer system and he was able to extricate himself with little difficulty. As he emerged from a storm drain, Milo dodged around a spilled load of structural steel. As he turned on to Phineas’ street, he was joined by Zack, Melissa and Amanda. He gave them a friendly wave.   
As the four of them turned onto Phineas’ street, they approached a large, rambling two storey house. The four of them dropped their bikes in the driveway and walked up to the front door. Milo rang the doorbell and a second later a tall man with half moon glasses opened the door. “Well, hello,” said Lawrence Fletcher brightly. Lawrence was Ferb’s father and Candace and Phineas’ stepfather. “Come in.You must be friends of Phineas and Ferb, they’re in the backyard.” They followed him through the house to the backyard. From somewhere upstairs, they heard a teenage girl say, “those two little brainiacs! They’ve built a clean room in the backyard! And a particle accelerator! They are so busted!”  
Zack leaned over and whispered in Milo’s ear. “What do they need a clean room and a particle accelerator for?”  
Milo shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said.   
Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda followed Mr. Fletcher into the large backyard. In the middle of the yard stood a tall, leafy tree. At one end a large white cube, like some kind of minimalist sculpture, stood as high as the second storey. Heavy power cables snakes across the yard to what appeared to be a large magnetic coil.  
“Boys,” called Mr. Fletcher, “your friends have arrived.”  
At this, Phineas pushed up a welding mask with a gloved hand. He spotted Milo at once and his face split into a big grin. “Hi, Milo.” Phineas shut off the blowtorch and dropped it into the grass.   
Milo walked across the yard to where Phineas was standing. The nine year old genius was clearly in his element. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning surrounded by a huge pile of presents. Ferb finished welding shut a panel on top of the magnetic coil, which was twenty feet in diameter, and climbed down to join his stepbrother and Milo. “Hi, guys.” Milo cast his gaze around the yard, which was littered with tools, spare parts and empty packing crates. “So, what is all this?”  
Phineas rubbed his hands with excited glee. “C’mon, I’ll show you.” Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda followed him from one end of the yard to the other, eventually stopping in front of the two storey clean room. Phineas opened a storage locker and began passing out white smocks. “You’ll need to put these on,” he said.   
As Milo shrugged off his backpack and pulled on the smock that Phineas had handed him, he thought he caught a slight look of apprehension on Zack’s face. Milo hadn’t seen that look in awhile and suddenly remembered that Zack was claustroavoidant. “Are you going to be OK?” he asked.   
Zack took a deep steadying breath. “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he said. He sounded as if he was trying to reassure himself as much as Milo.   
“I’ve got a spare Kevlar vest in my backpack if you want to borrow it,” offered Milo.  
“Wait, why did you pack a second Kevlar vest?” asked Zack.  
Milo shrugged and shouldered his backpack. “In case of Murphy’s Law.” Milo finished zipping up his smock and prepared to go inside.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo Murphy’s Life is a direct continuation of the canonical events of Milo Murphy’s Law. Phineas and Ferb have invited Milo and his friends to see their latest project and everything goes immediately wrong.

Milo and Zack followed the others through the outer door, which closed behind them. They felt a blast of slightly cool air and the inner door opened. They stepped through the inner door, which closed behind them. The overhead lights made everything seem overly bright and Milo squinted against the glare. In the centre of the room, surrounded by thick cables and computers, stood a pair of black carbon fibre panels on a raised platform. Milo immediately recognized what he was seeing. It was the wormhole generator that he had shown them on the morning after Milo’s sleepover a few weeks ago. He sidled over to where Phineas.  
Melissa must have read the look on Milo’s face, because she was suddenly at his side. “Ummm…..Phineas,” said Milo and Melissa in unison.  
Phineas looked up from his computer. His eyes were alight. “So what do you think?” he asked excitedly.  
“Phineas, is this what I think it is?” asked Milo.  
Phineas nodded. “This was our final project for our quantum physics class.” He turned to Baljeet. “How are the ion emissions looking.”  
Baljeet typed a command into his computer. “Ion emissions are stable.”  
“Phineas, do you understand how dangerous it is to bring Milo here?” asked Melissa  
Phineas looked a little confused. It was not a look that he was accustomed to wearing, “I don’t understand,” he said at last.  
“Murphy’s Law is completely unpredictable,” said Milo. “Anything that can go wrong around me, will go wrong.”  
Phineas turned to Ferb. “Ferb, how is the muon output.”  
Ferb gave Phineas a thumbs up. He turned back to face Milo and Melissa. He looked slightly annoyed, as if he was unused to having his judgement questioned. “The machine is perfectly safe,” he said. “We have run hundreds of simulations,” he said. “We have detected no serious flaws in the machine, even accounting for the possibility of Murphy’s Law.”  
Milo blinked. “You did?” He suddenly felt slightly embarrassed.  
Phineas nodded. “Of course we did, well actually it was mostly Baljeet. This sort of thing is really more his area than mine.”  
Milo felt his face flush. “Oh, I’m sorry Phineas,” said Milo. “I didn’t mean to-“  
Phineas waved a dismissive hand. “It’s OK, Milo,” he said, “I should have explained myself more fully.” His computer chimed and he pulled up a data feed onto his screen. “Isabella,” he said, “how are the antiproton levels?”  
“Antiprotons are stable, Phineas,”called out Isabella.   
In anticipation of some unasked question, Ferb gave Phineas another thumbs up.  
Phineas nodded and entered a string of commands into his computer. “Looks like we’re ready,” he said.  
“Ready for what?” asked Zack.  
As if in answer klaxons blared loudly and the overhead lights flicked from fluorescent white to blue and a electric blue haze seemed to descend over everything.  
“Phineas, what is happening?” asked Melissa, with an edge of alarm in her voice.   
“We’re getting ready to open the wormhole,” replied Phineas.  
“Uhhhhhh……are we sure this is a good idea?” asked Zack nervously.  
“With Milo around?” asked Melissa, “are you kidding me?”  
As she spoke, Milo felt the hair on the back of neck stand up. In spite of Phineas’ assurances, a small part of him couldn’t help but agree with Melissa. He felt like he should leave, and yet he was rooted to the spot. It was as if his nerves would not obey his brain. As he watched Phineas, Ferb, Baljeet and Isabella calling out various readings, it was as if he was hearing them from a great distance, even though Phineas was standing right next to him. He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. Milo turned and saw Amanda standing next to him.  
“What’s happening, Milo?” she asked. “Is everything all right?”  
Milo was silent for a second or two and he wondered what to tell her. Finally he said, “well, I think Phineas and Ferb are trying to open a wormhole and-“  
“Around you?” interjected Amanda, “around Murphy’s Law? Is that safe?”  
“Well, Phineas thinks he can account for Murphy’s Law,” replied Milo.And yet a small voice in the back of his head said, Melissa, Zack and Amanda could all see it, why can’t Phineas?  
Again, Amanda interrupted Milo’s thoughts. “I didn’t think it was possible to account for Murphy’s Law.”  
“That’s because it’s not,”replied Melissa. “Milo, this is a bad idea. We should leave.” She tried to pull on his arm. Milo didn’t move. She traded an alarmed look with Zack. This was totally out of character for Milo. She cast a glance at the Einstein-Rosen Bridge. A pair of curved panels had risen up from under platform and were spinning rapidly. Tendrils of energy were writhing between between the carbon fibre panels. She cast another worried look at Milo, which Milo returned. “That does it,” she said. “Phineas,” she had to shout the be heard above the blaring alarms, “turn it off.” Melissa had a sudden feeling of disquiet. Milo was normally as a unflappable as a rock in the middle of the utter chaos that was his usual day to day existence. When Milo looked worried, thought Melissa, it was time to pay attention.   
“Milo,” asked Zack, reading the look on Melissa’s face, “what’s wrong?”  
“I don’t know,” said Milo, “but something feels very wrong.”  
“Murphy’s Law?” asked Melissa.  
Before Milo could answer, Baljeet piped up. “Phineas, we have a problem.”  
“What is it?” asked Phineas.  
“My sensors are registering a quantum anomaly,” said Baljeet.   
“That’s not possible,” said Phineas in alarm. “Where is it coming from?”  
Baljeet’s hands flew over his keyboard. “It is coming from Milo,” he said.   
“But how-“ began Melissa.  
“I do not know,” replied Baljeet, cutting her off. “I can only assume that this is the result of Murphy’s Law.”  
“Baljeet, turn it off,” said Zack.  
Baljeet began to input a string of commands into his computer, but before he could finish, several crackling tendrils of energy arced out across the room. Milo was suddenly lit in a ghostly blue white glow. He felt the hair on his arms stand up and he felt as though ants were crawling around under his skin. “I am trying but-“  
Milo suddenly felt Melissa take his hand. She was a afraid, he realized, and there wasn’t anything he could say to her that would make any of it better. “Milo,” she said, her voice was trembling, “we’re not leaving you.”  
No sooner had Melissa spoke than a pencil thin beam of green light shot down from the ceiling, where it contacted the spinning panels. It bent at a perfect right angle and shot across the room where it struck Milo square in the chest. There was a blinding flash of light which caused Phineas, Ferb, Isabella and Baljeet to throw their hands in front of their eyes. When it faded, Milo, Melissa, Zack and Amanda were gone.

Milo felt himself being pitched forward into darkness. For a brief moment he was weightless, then the breath was driven forcibly from his lungs as he hit the ground very hard. He estimated that he had fallen about ten or twelve feet. Before he could move several heavy objects were driven forcibly into him and he heard a succession of grunts. After a moment or two, when he was sure nothing else was going to fall on him, his addled brain told him that that his friends had fallen on him. Milo groaned.  
“Milo?” said a worried and excited voice. It was Melissa. “Are you OK?” She sounded relieved.  
“No,” he said, wincing. “You all fell on me.” He suddenly felt a fiery pain in his chest and he thought he might have cracked a rib. He felt the others roll off of him and the only weight on his back was his backpack, which was pressing awkwardly against his shoulder blades. Slowly, Milo pushed himself up until he was on all fours, then trying to ignore his cracked rib, which throbbed with every breath, he sat back on his backside and shrugged off his backpack. “Zack, check my backpack,” said Milo. “I packed night vision goggles and bandages.”  
Wondering to himself, and not for the first time, just how Milo knew to pack exactly what he needed for the situation that he found himself in, Zack blindly felt through Milo’s backpack until he found four pairs of night vision goggles and several rolls of tensor bandages. He put one pair on and flicked the switch on the side. Everyone thing was suddenly painted vivid electronic green. “Whoa,” said Zack.   
“What do you see?” asked Amanda. Zack was suddenly a pair of glowing green orbs in the darkness.  
“It looks like Phineas’s wormhole generator,” said Zack.  
“What,” said Melissa sharply. “Zack do you have any more of those goggles?” she asked.  
“Huh-oh yeah.” He had momentarily forgotten the three other pairs of night vision goggles still in his hand. He quickly passed them out.   
Melissa pulled on her goggles and everything was suddenly bathed in ghostly green light. She could see Milo and knew at once by the way he was holding himself that he was in pain. “Where does it hurt?”she asked without preamble.  
“I think I cracked a rib,” replied Milo.  
Melissa nodded and began to help Milo take off his clothes. He needed no help shrugging off his clean room smock, but winced a little every time he had to lean forward to allow her pull his sweater vest and golf shirt over his head. She waited while he undid the Velcro straps of his body armour and started to slid it off. She took it from him and packed it in his backpack. The bandages would make wearing it too uncomfortable. Finally, Melissa helped Milo pull off his undershirt. Stripped to the waist, Melissa examined Milo’s chest. A large bruise was spreading across the right side of his chest, from his sternum almost to Milo’s armpit. “That looks bad,” she said.   
Milo tried to give her a characteristic causal shrug, but stopped. It hurt too much. “Its not that bad,” he said.  
Melissa took one of the rolls of tensor bandages and unrolled it. “Stop trying to make me feel better,” she said. Starting under Milo’s armpits, she pulled the bandage taught and began to wrap it around his chest.   
“How about you, Melissa?”asked Milo as she worked on him. “Are you OK?”  
She paused for a second. She didn’t know how to answer him. She wanted to tell him that she was fine, but she also knew that he would see through that. She had a sudden image of Milo floating in space without a space suit. She forcibly pushed the image away. She took a deep, steadying breath and resumed bandaging Milo’s ribs. “It’s just that-I-well, first Octalia, and now,” she gestured with her free hand, “whatever this is. I have no idea if I’m OK or not.”  
She had finished wrapping up Milo’s ribcage while they had been talking. She had suspected that he has downplayed the extent to which he had been injured at least a little, so she wouldn’t worry about him. As a result she had wrapped his entire upper body from his armpits to his diaphragm. Melissa handed Milo back his undershirt and he stiffly began to dress himself.   
Slowly Milo got to his feet. He could hear Zack and Amanda walking around and talking quietly. Evidently they had slipped away to give Milo and Melissa some privacy while she patched him up. He tried to straighten up and swooned slightly.Melissa took Milo by the upper arm to steady him. “I’m OK,” he said. “I think I may have a minor concussion, though.”   
“Maybe you should sit down,” suggested Melissa.  
Milo shook his head. “I’ll be fine, Melissa.”  
“Are you sure, Milo?” asked Melissa, “I mean after, well-“  
“Melissa?” asked Milo.  
“Yeah, Milo?”  
“Thanks.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo Murphy’s Life is a direct continuation of the canonical events of Milo Murphy’s Law. Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda have been sucked through an unstable wormhole from Danville into an unknown dimension.

Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda surveyed the darkened clean room through their night vision goggles.  
“Zack’s right,” said Milo. “It looks exactly like the machine that Phineas and Ferb built.”  
“Could we use it to get home?” asked Amanda.  
Milo, Zack and Melissa all felt sudden apprehension at this suggestion. “We don’t know how Phineas’ machine worked,” said Milo slowly.  
“That’s because it didn’t work,” replied Melissa.  
“That was because of me,” said Milo. “I’m really sorry for landing us all in this mess.”  
“Don’t be, Milo,” said Zack. “We’re in this mess because Phineas thought that he could predict Murphy’s Law.”  
“He’s a smart kid,” said Melissa in agreement, “but not smart enough.”  
“Well, at the very least, we should try to get out of this room,” said Amanda. “Then we can at least see where we are.”  
“Good suggestion, “ said Milo. “Everybody spread out and see if you can find a way out of here.”  
Melissa and Amanda went in one direction and Milo and Zack went in the other. “Are you feeling OK?”asked Zack.  
Milo shrugged. “Cracked rib and a concussion,” he said. “All in all, a light day. How’s your claustroavoidance?”  
It was Zack’s turn to shrug. “I guess it’s hard to be claustroavoidant when you can’t see where you are, and since when is being sucked through a wormhole a light day.”  
Milo chuckled, then winced. “OK,” he said, “so not a light day then.” They stopped walking. They had reached the room’s outer wall. “Hey,” said Milo excitedly. “look at this.” He pointed to a sign on the wall. 

NO SMOKING  
CLEAN ROOM ENVIRONMENT  
McDUCK ENTERPRISES  
THE MONEY BIN  
DUCKBURG  
CALISOTA, USA

Zack and Milo traded very confused looks. “The Money Bin?” asked Zack. “Duckburg? Milo, where are we?”  
Milo read the sign three times. He wondered if it was somebody’s idea of a prank. “I have no idea.”  
“We definitely need to find a way out of here,” said Zack. They kept walking around the perimeter of the room and eventually found a door made of opaque plexiglass. Next to it on the wall was what appeared to be a biometric palm scanner.   
Milo tried bend over to look through his backpack for his toolkit, but his cracked rib and the bandages wound thickly around his chest made that impossible. He straightened up clutching his side. “Zack, can you get my tools?” he asked.  
Zack nodded and quickly searched through Milo’s backpack, pulling out a small set of what appeared to be jewelers’ tools. Milo pulled out a screwdriver and proceeded to unscrew the screws holding the panel to the wall. It came lose in his hand, revealing a tangle of wires behind it. He stripped several of them and began touching the lose ends. After a couple of attempts, the plexiglass door slid aside. A bright shaft of light coming from a corridor beyond spilled into the dark room. The sudden flood of light washed out their night vision googles and they pushed them up on to their foreheads, blinking in the dim light.

They pushed open the outer door and stepped into what appeared to be an ordinary corridor. It was brightly lit and painted hospital white. Doors marched away down either side of the corridor, leading to various labs and workshops. The four of them looked around at each other, aside from the strange sign that Milo and Zack had found, everything looked normal. They turned right and started walking down the corridor, passing various closed doors as they went. They had gone about half way down the corridor when they heard they heard a door open, along with a voice, the sound of foot steps and a clopping sound like horseshoes.  
“Manny, can you take this box of parts to Dr. Gearloose.”  
Clop, clop, clop.  
“Oh, and when you’re done with that I need you take the sample of Fentonium and put it back in the vault. And be careful with it, it’s still not fully stabilized.”  
Clop-clop, clop, clop.  
Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda turned at as one at the sounds behind them in the corridor and saw one of the most bizarre sights any of them had ever seen. Coming down the corridor were what appeared to a horse walking on its hind legs. It had the head of what Milo could swear was the stone bust of a duck with spectacles. Its stone top hat almost brushed the ceiling. Next to it was a duck, but again something was wrong. It was as tall as Milo, and had brownish grey plumage. It was wearing a cream coloured button down shirt and a pale lavender tie.  
“Uhhh…..Milo?” said Melissa, in bewilderment.  
“Yeah, Melissa?” The tone in Milo’s voice said that he was as bewildered as she was.  
“Milo, where the hell are we?” asked Zack.  
Milo didn’t know what to say. He had thought that sentient plant monsters and shape shifting aliens had been weird. Until now.   
“What should we do?” asked Amanda. “Maybe they can tell us where we are.”  
For the first time in thirteen years of dealing with all the insanity that Murphy’s Law had thrown at him, Milo was uncertain of what to do. The two figures were still coming toward them. The brownish grey duck was still giving instructions to the horse, who was listening intently. Milo had almost made up his mind that he would go and talk to the duck, since it seemed to speak English, when the horse suddenly stopped walking. It gestured with one hoof and stamped rapidly on the ground with one of its hind legs. The duck stopped in its tracks and looked down the corridor toward where Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda were standing. It turned toward the wall and pressed a button. Milo had noticed several of them spaced at regular intervals on both walls. He had initially thought that they were fire alarms, but now realized that they must be some kind of security system.  
“Uh-oh,” said Zack.  
“Uhhh, yeah,” said Milo in agreement.  
“Anyone get the feeling that we’re not supposed to be here,” asked Melissa.  
Milo’s initial instinct was to run, but he didn’t think that his cracked rib would let him get very far. Instead he said, “hide!” The four of them immediately began trying doors, but they were all locked. From somewhere ahead of them, they heard the ding of an elevator door opening and the staccato tramp of heavy footsteps. A dozen large, burly security guards in grey uniforms appeared from around a corner at the opposite end of the corridor.   
A little Murphy’s Law would be nice about now, thought Milo, but nothing happened. The sound of pounding footsteps was getting closer and Milo heard shouting voices. The duck and the bipedal horse caught up to Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda just before the security guards did.   
“Don’t take another step,” it said.  
Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda all came to a stop. Zack turned to face the brownish grey duck. Its eyes were level were with his. “What are you?” asked Zack. “And where are we?”   
Milo felt a pair of hands close over his upper arms. The duck was examining them closely. “Something’s wrong here,” it said. “How did you get in here?” it asked.   
For a second Milo considered not answering, but another more rational part of his brain told him that if they were going find out where they were and go home, it was probably better to cooperate. “That’s kind of a long story,” he said slowly.  
The duck looked closely at Milo. “The Money Bin has the best security system that money can buy and Scrooge McDuck has a lot of money,” it said. “You four got in here without tripping the system. Mr.McDuck will want to know how you did that.”

Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda were taken by the security guards to a holding area two floors up from where they had been found. They were accompanied by the brownish grey duck, who the guards addressed as Fenton. They were met there by what Milo took to be a very thin chicken in a pork pie hat, glasses and a green button down shirt. His name evidently, was Dr. Gearloose.   
“Are these the four you found in my lab?” he asked Fenton.  
Fenton nodded. “We found them in the corridor outside the clean room,” he said. “We don’t know how they got in there in the first place, but they took apart the biometric door scanners inside in order to get out.”  
Gyro was silent for a second or two, processing this information. Something about this didn’t make sense. “I’m going to check on the machine,” said Gyro after after a minute or two of contemplation, “make sure they haven’t tampered with anything.”  
“Should we alert Mr.McDuck?” asked Fenton. “He’ll want to know that Bin security has been breached.”  
Gyro waved a dismissive hand, “tell him if you want, but he probably already knows.”  
Fenton’s phone pinged. He pulled it out and looked at the screen. “It’s from Mr. McDuck,” he said. “He wants them brought up stairs for when he arrives.”  
“I trust I can leave that minimally difficult task in your hands?” asked Gyro.  
Fenton nodded.  
“Good,” said Gyro. “When you’re done, I want you back down in the lab.”  
Fenton nodded again, and Gyro walked off.

Twenty minutes later, Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda were brought up to a large conference room. The oak panelled walls were hung with expensive looking oil paintings and a large area rug with a gold dollar sign woven into it covered most of the floor. At the focal point of the room, was a large mahogany conference table surrounded by heavy chairs. Milo’s backpack sat in the middle. Its contents, which included two complete changes of clothes, including shoes, socks and underwear, a pair of rubber boots, an umbrella, four pairs of night vision goggles, two flashlights, extra batteries, a first aid kit, an assortment of tools, a deflated rubber raft, his body armour, and a couple of battered looking Dr. Zone novels, were neatly arrayed on the table.   
Milo rounded on Fenton. “You went through my backpack!” he said angrily. “You didn’t have the right to do that.” Milo suddenly felt a little bit violated.  
“And you broke into my Money Bin,” said a voice from behind him. “You certainly had no right to do that.”  
Milo turned and immediately recognized the head of the bizarre bipedal horse he had seen earlier. The figure walking into the room was a little shorter than Fenton, but his prescience seemed to fill the room. He wore a black silk top hat with a red hat band, a matching red and black frock coat and spats. A tiny pair of spectacles were perched on his bill. The end of a black cane clicked on the polished granite floor. Some of his feathers stuck out in a way that reminded Milo of old fashioned mutton chops. He spoke in a noticeable Scottish accent . He gestured to the conference table. “Why don’t you sit down and tell me who you are and how in the name of Dismal Downs you broke into my Money Bin.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo Murphy’s Life is a direct continuation of the canonical events of Milo Murphy’s Law. Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda come face to face with Scrooge McDuck.

The duck in the frock coat and spats walked to what Milo presumed to be his usual seat at the end of the conference table and sat down. He waited patiently while Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda sat down next to him.  
“My name is Scrooge McDuck,” he said, “and just how did you get in here without tripping the security system.”  
Milo took a deep breath, wondering just how believable this duck would find his story.“My name is Milo Murphy,” he began. Milo gestured to his friends. “These are my friends, Zack Underwood, Melissa Chase and Amanda Lopez.” Milo took another deep breath before carrying on. “Our being here is an accident,” he said.  
“Is it now?” asked Scrooge, sceptically, “You brought a backpack full of tools, and you took apart two of the biometrics scanners in Dr. Gearloose’ clean room. How did you get in there and what were you trying to do?”  
“I pack my backpack every day,” said Milo.  
“With four pairs of night vision goggles and pliers?” asked Scrooge, a little incredulously,“And a grappling hook?”  
Milo shrugged. “I use the contents of my backpack to help me manage Murphy’s Law.”  
Scrooge looked confused. “You’re having me on,” he said. “Murphy’s law is just an old proverb. Anything that can go wrong-“  
“-will go wrong,” finished Milo. “For most people, Murphy’s Law really is just an old proverb.”  
Scrooge looked appraisingly at Milo. “But, not for you, I take it?”  
Milo nodded. “No,” he said. “I’m different.”  
“How?” asked Scrooge.  
“Murphy’s Law is an inherited trait in my family,” explained Milo. “Every Murphy man for the last seven generations has been born with Murphy’s Law.”  
“You were born with Murphy’s Law?” Scrooge looked at incredulously at Milo again.”But how is that even possible?” he asked. He studied Milo carefully. It was an absurd story, and yet from the way Milo spoke and the way he carried himself, Scrooge couldn’t shake the feeling that his story had the ring of truth.  
“I don’t know,”replied Milo, “I can tell you how it works, though.”  
“And how does it work?” asked Scrooge.  
“My body creates a field of negative probability,” explained Milo.”Any energy fields in my immediate vicinity are automatically skewed toward negative out comes.” No sooner had Milo finished speaking than he heard the sound of a chain snapping overhead. He looked up and saw a large chandelier descending rapidly toward the middle of the table. He whipped out a hand and grabbed his backpack, pulling it toward himself, ignoring the protest of his cracked rib. A split second later, the heavy chandelier hit the table with the sound of splintering wood and metal. The table cracked under the force of the impact, sending Milo’s clothes and tools flying everywhere.  
“Was that-“ Scrooge began.  
“Yeah, that was Murphy’s Law in action,” said Milo.  
Scrooge looked at Milo as if he were only just seeing him for the first time. “You’ve lived your whole life like this?” he asked, slightly amazed.  
Milo nodded. “It’s not always easy,” he said, “but I’ve got the three best friends in the world to look out for me.” Out of the corner of his eye, Milo thought he caught Zack, Melissa and Amanda all looking at each other. They all valued their friendship with Milo for his optimism and his almost endless willingness to put others before himself as well as his sheer persistence in the face of the often daily challenges that Murphy’s Law threw at him, but they clearly had had no idea just how deeply Milo valued his relationship with them.  
Scrooge sat back in his chair, studying the hapless teenager and his three friends, who he evidently though the world of.“There’s still the matter of how you got into the Money Bin,” he said at last.  
“I told you, Mr.McDuck,”said Milo, “our being here is the result of an accident.”  
Scrooge involuntarily blinked at the sound of Milo addressing him by name. Evidently they established a repor. ”What kind of accident?” he asked.  
“It was an accident involving Murphy’s Law and an unstable wormhole,” said Milo. He quickly explained how Phineas had built an Einstein-Rosen Bridge in his backyard and that when he had tried to turn it on, Murphy’s Law had hit immediately and everything that could go wrong, had.  
Scrooge was silent for a long time, wondering what to do. He would defer to Gyro and Fenton for the details, but his sense was that Milo and his friends had been very, very lucky. “I don’t exactly know how to help you yet,” he said at last, “but I would like help you if I can.” He picked up the phone next to his chair and made a call. “Launchpad, bring the car around, I’m sending some guests up to McDuck Manor.” He put the phone down for a second, then picked it up again. “Mrs. Beakley, please have four rooms made up, we’re having guests.”

The drive from the Money Bin through downtown Duckburg up to the gates of McDuck Manor took twenty five minutes. The limousine snaked its way up the winding road to the sprawling compound at the summit of Bear Mountain, stopping only long enough for the elaborate wrought iron gates bearing the legend MD, to swing open. The limousine wound its way up the long tree lined drive, circling around a large circular drive dominated by a huge gold dollar sign. The limousine stopped in front the large oak double front doors. The driver, a tall, barrel chested duck in a battered flight jacket, a baseball hat and boots named Launchpad, shut off the engine and got out. He walked around the rear passenger side door and opened. “Well, here we are at McDuck Manor,” he said, as Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda clambered out. Milo moved slowly, favouring his right side and his cracked rib.  
McDuck Manor had the air of a baronial castle from the Scottish Highlands. Turreted windows stared down at Milo from all sides. He hefted his backpack and walked up the steps to the heavy double doors. He pushed them open and went inside, followed by Zack, Melissa, Amanda and Launchpad. They were standing in a large entrance hall lined with suits of armour and old paintings. A heavy set duck in a purple blouse, glasses and an apron was waiting for them at the bottom of an elaborate staircase. The room was lit by shafts of sunlight streaming in through large lead line windows.  
As the door banged shut behind them, she walked across the entrance hall toward where Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda stood looking around. “Welcome to McDuck Manor,” she said. “My name is Mrs. Beakley.” She spoke in a slightly bored voice. “I am Mr. McDuck’s maid, cook, housekeeper and secretary. If you need anything, please ask me.” She cast a practiced eye over Milo. “If you like, I will prepare an ice pack for your chest.”  
Milo looked slightly startled. At no point had it occurred to him to mention that he had cracked a rib. He wondered how she had been able to tell. “Uhhhh….thanks,” he said. “I’d appreciate that.”  
Mrs. Beakley nodded. “If you will all follow me, I will show to your rooms.” Without another word she proceeded up the staircase. Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda followed along behind her, trying to take in everything as they went. Mrs.Beakley eventually stopped half way down a corridor on the fourth floor. “These are your rooms,” she said gesturing to four doors marching away down the corridor. She opened Milo’s door and he stepped inside. The room within was large and well appointed. In one corner stood a large four poster bed. In the others were a writing desk and a comfortable chair with a reading light. A wardrobe stood along one wall. A large window offered a view overlooking the expansive and perfectly manicured grounds. A closed door led to an attached bathroom.  
When Mrs. Beakley returned ten minutes later, it was with an ice pack in hand and a bundle under one arm. Milo began to slowly pull off his sweater vest, then his golf shirt, body armour and finally his undershirt. Once again Mrs. Beakley examined him with a practiced and critical eye. “These bandages have been inexpertly applied,” she said finally. He stood still as she unwrapped the tensor bandages. The right side of Milo’s chest was a mass of purple and black bruising. There was a noticeable protrusion in his chest where his cracked rib was pushing outward, stretching his skin. She gently pressed the ice pack to his chest and he let out an involuntary breath as he felt the frigid numbness spreading through his body. “Keep that there, and I will return with proper bandages.” Milo nodded in understanding. As she turned to leave, she deposited the bundle on the low wardrobe by the door and Milo realized that it was clothing. “As you may be staying with us for some time, I have taken the liberty of procuring some additional clothing in your size.” Mrs. Beakley open the door and went out.  
No sooner had the door swung shut, than it opened again, this time admitting Zack, Melissa and Amanda. They had been talking, but stopped upon seeing Milo with his shirt off, ice pack pressed to chest.  
“That looks bad,” said Zack pointing to Milo’s injury, “even for you.”  
Milo waved away Zack’s concern with a shrug. “It’s just a cracked rib,” he said. “It’s not the first time. I’ll be fine in a few weeks.”  
“Milo,” said Amanda, “we wanted to thank for what you said about us.”  
“Yeah,” said Zack. He coughed once. He suddenly felt a little self conscious. “We had no idea that you felt like that about us.”  
Milo gazed levelled at his friends, “well, I do,” he said. “Being a Murphy is hard,” he said. Milo paused, wondering exactly how to explain how he felt. “Most people don’t realize that, but its true. They just see the runaway construction equipment and the chaos that follows me everywhere, but they don’t realize that Murphy’s Law doesn’t just affect my body,” he gestured to the ice pack pressed to his side. “It also affects my mental health and my relationships-“  
“Does it?”asked Zack, surprised, “I never really thought about Murphy’s Law like that.”  
“It does,” answered Milo, “I’m not really sure how to describe in a way that you’d understand, except to say that it can. As for my relationships,” Milo shrugged and looked at Zack, Melissa and Amanda again, “well, you guys know how unpredictable Murphy’s Law can be.” Milo paused again, wondering how to tell them what he wanted to tell them, “You guys give me a lot of stability. I’ve never told anyone that before, but it’s true.” Milo took a steadying breath. “Sometimes, I feel like you protect from myself,” he said simply.  
There was what seemed to be at least a minute of ringing silence in the room. Zack, Melissa and Amanda looked floored. An image came unbidden to Melissa’ mind of the first time she had met Milo. It had been at the bus stop at the end of Milo’s street. They had both been six at the time and it had been the first day of first grade. She vividly remembered that Murphy’s Law had hit when a rocket engine had become lodged on the roof of the bus and she and Milo had been thrown out of the bus and onto the emergency exit door. She and Milo had become fast friends after that. For awhile, she had even tried to study Murphy’s Law, hoping that she might be able help Milo live a normal life free from its effects, but she had eventually realized that he didn’t want that. She had not realized just how much of stabilizing force in his otherwise completely chaotic life she had been over the last seven years and she guessed that Zack and Amanda had had no idea either.  
Melissa blinked a couple of times. “Milo,” she began, “That means a lot to-“  
Milo cut her off with a gentle wave of his hand. “It’s OK, Melissa,” he said, “you don’t need to say anything.”  
“Milo,” said Amanda.  
“Yeah, Amanda,” said Milo.  
“You’re the best friend I think I’ve ever had.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo Murphy’s Life is a direct continuation of the canonical events of Milo Murphy’s Law. Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda have convince Scrooge that their intrusion into the Money Bin has been an accident and Scrooge has promised to try to find a way to,send them back to Danville.

Mrs. Beakley returned fifteen minutes later with gauze. She rewrapped Milo’s chest and showed him how to do it himself without assistance. She pulled the bandages tight, forcing his cracked rib back into its proper alignment. An involuntary grunt escaped his lips as she did it and his chest burned hotly, but Milo found that he had much greater mobility as a result. She left several extras rolls of bandages on the low wardrobe next to the pile of neatly folded clothes. The sun was sinking towards the horizon and the trees in the grounds cast long shadows. “We will be dining on the terrace this evening,” said Mrs. Beakley, “should you care to join us.”

An hour later, Milo, Zack, Melissa, and Amanda walked down from their rooms, eventually stepping out on to an expansive flagstone terrace. It offered a commanding view of the sprawling metropolis below. Milo walked over to the wrought iron balustrade, which had been twisted into an elaborate series of dollar signs. Duckburg was ablaze with lights. Scrooge walked over to join him.  
“Milo,” he said genially,”I’m glad you and your friends could join us.”  
“We never got a chance to thank you for helping us Mr. McDuck,” said Milo.  
Scrooge waved the hand clutching his cane airily.”One of the nice things about being the richest duck in the world is that I can do pretty much whatever I want, and I want to help you if I can, and my employees call me Mr.McDuck. You and your friends can call me Scrooge.”  
“Alright, Scrooge,” said Milo.  
From behind him, Milo heard footsteps and voices, followed immediately by a squeal of delight, which he recognized immediately as Amanda. He turned and saw a duck with a slender build and a long cascade of feathery hair flowing down her back. She was dressed in an old flight jacket, a silk pilot’s scarf and a leather flying cap. She was followed closely behind by a gaggle of ducklings, three boys and a girl. The girl and the boy in a blue T-shirt were laughing at something on the boy’s phone. Mrs.Beakley and Launchpad brought up the rear.  
“Oh!” exclaimed Amanda excitedly, “they’re so adorable,” and before anyone could stop her, she had scooped up a boy dressed in a green hoodie and given him a crushing hug.  
He squirmed and kicked at Amanda. “Hey! What the-! Ow! Put me down!” He eventually wriggled free and fell onto the flagstone surface, landing hard on his backside. He picked himself up, and muttering something about, “Uncle Scrooge bringing home strays again.” He brushed himself off and continued toward the table, which had been set up in the middle of the terrace.  
Milo cast a slightly apprehensive eye toward Scrooge, who was chuckling. “Your friend Amanda certainly seems to have taken to Louie,” he said. He waved to the slender duck in the flight jacket. She turned and walked over to Scrooge and Milo. “You’ve already met Launchpad and Mrs. Beakley,” said Scrooge. “I’d like to introduce you to my niece, Della.The three boys are her kids, Huey, Dewey and Louie. The girl is Mrs.Beakley’s granddaughter, Webby.”  
Della stuck out a friendly hand and Milo shook it. “Hi, Della,” he said, “my name is Milo Murphy,” Milo gestured to his friends, “these are my friends, Zack, Melissa and Amanda.” Della exchanged a round of handshakes with Milo’s friends.   
“Hi, Milo,” said Della, “I hope you and your friends are comfortable here.”  
“Thanks, Della,” said Milo, “Scrooge is taking good care of us.”  
Della seemed to read something in Milo’s expression because she said,“If you and your friends ever need to talk, I understand what you’re going through, Milo.”  
Scrooge nodded.“Della was stranded on the moon ten years ago, just before her three boys were born,” he said. “Her brother Donald, had to raise them by himself. She only just got back a few weeks ago. She hasn’t really found her place yet.”  
As Scrooge spoke, Milo felt a sudden pang. He had a sudden vision of his parents, Sara and Doof and Perry sitting down to dinner at the kitchen table, just like they did everyday, expect that Milo’s seat was empty. Milo was suddenly aware of Scrooge scrutinizing him.  
“Are you alright, Milo?” asked Scrooge, a note of concern in his voice. “Is it your rib?”  
With a little effort, Milo pushed away the image. “No,” he said, “Mrs. Beakley re-bandaged my rib, and how did she know about that anyway?”  
Scrooge chuckled. “She has her ways,” he said. “She was my field partner for awhile, and she’s patched me up more that a few times.”  
Milo sighed, “I was just thinking, well you have your family,” he said. “I should be with mine.”  
“Does Murphy’s Law do this a lot, then?” asked Scrooge gently. He couldn’t help but feel a certain affection for the hapless teenager and admired his friends for sticking by him, despite the many challenges that came with doing so.  
“It’s happened a couple of times before,” replied Milo. He quickly told Scrooge about the Pistachions and the Octalians. As he spoke, he wondered if there was some way to send a message to Cavendish and Dakota. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mrs. Beakley going back and forth from the kitchen with bowls and platters of food. Milo followed the flow of people toward the table. He found himself sitting near the head of the table next Scrooge and opposite Huey, Dewey, Louie and Webby. Milo suddenly realized that he was famished and immediately began attacking his food. Huey, Dewey, Louie and Webby stared at him avidly as he ate.   
Looking as if he were about to burst from excitement, Dewey suddenly blurted out, “are you really from another dimension?”  
Huey, Louie and Webby were suddenly talking over each other, trying to attract Milo’s attention.  
“How did you get here?”  
“What’s your dimension like?”  
“Can you read minds?”  
“Kids, please,” interjected Scrooge, “let him eat. He’s had a long day.”  
Milo found that he couldn’t help but like Huey, Dewey, Louie and Webby. He put down his fork and took in the four of them. “Yes,” he said, “I’m from another dimension.” Milo had thought about what had happened and had decided that there was really no other explanation. “My friends and I came here as a result of Murphy’s Law.”  
Huey looked at Milo sceptically, “but how does that work?”he asked. “Murphy’s Law is just an axiom. Anything that can go wrong will. There’s no hard science there.”  
Huey’s chair collapsed, dumping him unceremoniously onto the ground. His brothers and Webby laughed. He picked himself up and looked at Milo. “How did you do that?” he asked.  
Milo shrugged. “Murphy’s Law,” he said.  
“Huey,” interjected Scrooge, “Milo isn’t your typical teenager.”  
“He doesn’t look like it,” said Webby.  
Milo felt another pang. For some reason that he couldn’t put his finger on, Webby reminded him of his sister. He briefly wondered if she was thinking of him. He felt another pang and had to push the thought away. “Well, I’m not, “ he said and he explained how he had been born with Murphy’s Law and how it was a inherited trait in his family.  
If anything, Huey looked even more sceptical. “But that doesn’t even make sense,” he said, “genetics doesn’t work like that.”  
“In my case it does,” replied Milo, and he explained about how his negative probability field skewed all outcomes in his vicinity to negative outcomes.  
Huey looked at Milo as if he were being intentionally dense. “But probability doesn’t work like that at all,” he said.  
Milo didn’t respond. Huey wasn’t the first person he had encountered who had been sceptical of Milo’s connection to Murphy’s Law.  
Eventually, Mrs. Beakley cleared away the remains of dinner and everyone went inside and began to make their way upstairs. Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda ran into Scrooge and Della coming from around a corner on the third floor.   
“Milo, good,” said Scrooge, “I was hoping to run into you again before you went to bed. I’d like the four of you to come down to the Money Bin tomorrow. I’d like you to talk to Gyro about your predicament.”  
Milo nodded. “We’ll see you tomorrow morning then,” he said.  
“Oh, and I hope you won’t take Huey too seriously,” said Scrooge. “He’s always demanding proof for everything.”  
Milo shrugged. “It goes with being a Murphy,” he said. “I know a few people like that.”  
Scrooge nodded. “Well, good night, to you all then.”

The limousine pulled into the garage under the Money Bin early the next morning. Milo, Zack, Melissa, Amanda and Scrooge got out and walked inside. Instead of following his usual path up to his inner sanctum on the top floor of the Money Bin, he lead Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda down to Gyro’s lab. Scrooge placed his hand on the biometric palm reader next to the door, which swung open and they went inside. They found Fenton waiting for them.  
“Fenton,” said Scrooge genially, “good morning.”  
“Good morning, Mr.McDuck,” said Fenton, “what brings you down here this morning?”  
Scrooge motioned to Milo and his friends. “This is Milo Murphy, and his friends, Zack, Melissa and Amanda. I believe you had a run in with them yesterday.”  
Fenton nodded, “Somehow they got in without tripping the security system.” He eyed Milo suspiciously. “How did you do that?” he asked.  
“That’s what we’ve come to talk you about,” Scrooge interjected. “Where’s Gyro?”  
“Checking the machine,” said Fenton.   
“Get him,” said Scrooge.  
Fenton turned and motioned for them follow him. They followed him down the hall past the entrance to the clean room and let them into Gyro’s office. “You can wait here,” he said. He turned and went out again. When he returned ten minutes later, it was with Gyro Gearloose in tow.  
“Good morning, Mr.McDu-“ Gyro stopped upon seeing the four teenagers. “What are they doing here?” he asked acidly.  
“They’re here because I promised them my help,” said Scrooge. “Their being here is an accident.”  
“Is it?” asked Gyro, “because they nearly damaged a very important quantum physics experiment.”  
“Yes, it is,” responded Milo, and he told them about his family’s history with Murphy’s Law and his negative probability field, the quantum anomaly it had created and Phineas’ machine. He watched Gyro and Fenton as he spoke and felt as though he could sense some of Huey’s skepticism in their eyes, but they let him finish and didn’t try to dissuade Milo that he was somehow wrong or crazy. When Milo was done talking after about twenty minutes, Fenton and Gyro looked at each other.  
“Hmmmm,” said Fenton thoughtfully after a while. “Everything in the universe resonates with a specific quantum frequency, if were possible to isolate theirs, perhaps we could open a stable event horizon back to their dimension.”  
“But, what about Murphy’s Law?” asked Milo. “It skews everything around me. Anything that can go wrong will.”  
“Well, what about the Murphy’s Lawinator?” asked Zack slowly. “It worked before and we wouldn’t have to turn it for very long.”  
Scrooge, Gyro and Fenton all looked confused. “What exactly is the Murphy’s Lawinator?” asked Scrooge, and for the first time Milo realized just how bad Doofenshmirtz was at naming his inventions.  
Melissa quickly explained what the Murphy’s Lawinator had been for and how it had worked. “Unfortunately,” she said, with a commiserating look at Milo, “it had unexpected side effects.”  
“I see,” said Scrooge slowly.  
There was another long silence, as everyone pondered the problem of how to safely open a wormhole to Danville without invoking Murphy’s Law.   
“Perhaps, there’s another way to look at the problem,” Zack suggested at last. “What if instead of trying to suppress Milo’s negative probability field, we try to flood it with positive probability instead.”  
Scrooge looked at Fenton and Gyro. “Would that work?” he asked.  
Gyro looked thoughtful. ”Perhaps,” he said slowly.  
“You might need to watch out for Orgaluth’s Law, though,” replied Milo, and he explained how an uncontrolled build up of negative probability ions had almost destroyed Octalia.  
Fenton looked thoughtful. “Well, we can run some simulations and see how it all fits together,” he said, “and we’ll have to run some tests to determine their exact quantum frequency.”  
“And how long will that take,” asked Scrooge.  
Gyro looked thoughtful again. “A week to do the tests,” he said.  
“-barring Murphy’s Law,” interjected Milo.  
“And another week to calibrate the equipment,” he finished.  
Scrooge nodded, “well then, I guess you had better get started.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo Murphy’s Life is a direct continuation of the canonical events of Milo Murphy’s Law.  
> Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda return to Danville from Duckburg.

Scrooge got up and walked out of Gyro’s office, followed by Gyro, Fenton, Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda. Scrooge turned one way toward the elevator up to his inner sanctum and the other turned the other way deeper into the labyrinth of Gyro’s laboratory. They eventually stopped in a large central workspace. Work benches with computers and various scientific instruments lined the walls. A large magnetic coil sat in an alcove by itself.   
Fenton turned to the four teenagers. “This is a quantum resonance imager,” he said. “We can use this to scan you to establish a baseline for determining your individual quantum frequencies. Once we’ve done that we’ll move on to additional testing.” He surveyed Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda. “So who’s going to go first?”  
In the end, Zack volunteered to go first and Fenton handed him a heavy lead apron, which caused his shoulders to noticeably sag. Fenton walked over to a computer on a stand next to the quantum resonance imager and input several commands. The interlocking magnetic coils spun around, realigning themselves with a series of whirs and loud metallic clunks. At the same time, a stretcher slid from the centre of the machine and Zack slowly lay down, as if he was fighting his claustroavoidance again.   
“We’ll start with ten passes,”said Fenton. He pushed a button and a blue light shone from the centre of the machine. He turned a second monitor and a generic outline of a humanoid body appeared on it with a series of cascading readouts in the bottom right corner. Fenton pushed another button and the quantum resonance imager began to execute a series of pre-programmes commands. Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! The magnetic coils began to rotate around Zack in a slow, methodical fashion. The generic humanoid form on the screen was slowly filled with a multicoloured spectral image as the quantum resonance imager probed Zack’s body at the subatomic level. It took an hour to complete the ten passes of Zack’s body with the quantum resonance imager, and another hour each for Melissa and Amanda. Performing a full scan of Milo took a full three hours because Murphy’s Law kept causing the machine to experience unexpected and highly improbable but not impossible breakdowns, which resulted in the machine having to be completely reset on three occasions, but eventually Gyro and Fenton were able to built up initial datasets for Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda. From there, over the course of the next week, the four teenagers were subjected to an extensive battery of tests, ranging from molecular imaging to brainwave analysis to tissue samples and fitness tests. They subjected Milo and his friends to absolutely every test they could think of in order to build up the most complete picture possible of their quantum state in order to have the best chance possible of sending them back to their own dimension. Late in the day at the end of the week, Scrooge came down to check on their progress.  
“Well you haven’t blow up the Bin, yet,” he said jokingly. “That’s encouraging.”  
Gyro and Fenton both nodded. “We’ve been able to isolate their quantum frequencies,” said Fenton. He brought a series of graphics on his computer. “Accurately isolating Milo’s was difficult because of Murphy’s Law.” He nodded at Milo, who shrugged.  
“The machines kept shorting out,” he said. “The quantum resonance imager crashed three times.”  
“But you were able to get what you needed?” asked Scrooge.  
Gyro nodded. “The next step will be to properly calibrate the generator in order to ensure a stable event horizon at the right temporal and spatial co-ordinates.”  
“That’s not something You four will be able to help us with,” said Fenton, with a shrug, “Sorry.” Despite his initial suspicions of the four teenagers, he had grown to thoroughly like all of them and would be sorry to see them go.

Eight days later, Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda stood garbed once again in four matching clean room smocks. Milo was slightly nervous and he impulsively fingered the quantum inhibitor on his wrist. He couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of déjà vu. The last time someone had tried to send him through a wormhole, everything had gone disastrously wrong and he has been pitched headfirst into an unstable wormhole and ended up in another dimension with a concussion and a cracked rib. Without realizing he was doing it, he pressed his hand to his right side.  
Melissa noticed the unconscious gesture. “Milo, are you OK,” she asked, a look of concern on her face.  
Milo sudden realized what he had been doing and shook himself. “I’m fine,” he said slightly more adamantly than he had intended. He did feel mostly fine he told himself, he felt a dull ache in his chest, but that was just his broken rib bone knitting itself back together.  
“Are you sure?” asked Zack, overhearing their conversation, “Scrooge did offer to let us stay for awhile, until you got better.”  
It was true, Milo reminded himself, Scrooge had been very generous with them. As there had nothing that Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda had been able to do to help Gyro and Fenton recalibrate all the generator’s equipment in order to give them the best chance possible of returning to Danville, he had arranged for Milo and his friends to spend some time in St. Canard, New Quackmore and Cape Suzette with Della and Huey, Dewey and Louie. Milo hefted the heavy soft cover book that Huey had given him as a parting gift. He looked at the front cover again, the title read The Junior Woodchuck Guidebook. He let the thick, heavy book fall open in his hands. He looked at the heading of the section that the book had fallen open to. It was titled was “Alien Abductions.” His mouth twitched slightly. That would have been helpful a couple of months ago, thought Milo. He turned from the page that the book had fallen open on to the table of contents and ran his eye down the long list of topic headings. They ran from hike planning, knots, canoe handling, rafting, setting up camp, identifying edible plants, mountain climbing and first aid to time travel, killer robots and tracking cryptids. Milo found that he suddenly had a new appreciation for Huey, his brothers and their friend Webby. Milo, Zack and Melissa has spent much of the week swapping stories about Murphy’s Law with the Duck boys and Webby who seemed to have an equally endless supply of stories about Scrooge, Della and their Uncle Donald, who they claimed was world class adventurer in his own right.  
Milo saw Zack walking over to him out of the corner of his eye and shut The Junior Woodchuck Guidebook. As he did, he noticed something written on the inside cover. He opened the inside cover. The book had been signed. Milo read, To Milo Murphy, Best Wishes from Huey, Dewey, Louie and Webby. He was still looking at the book when Zack appeared at his shoulder, interrupting his thoughts. Milo shut The Junior Woodchuck Guidebook and packed it in his backpack.  
“Ready to go home?” asked Zack.  
Milo nodded. “Yeah,” he said. Milo paused for a moment and then said, “I do like it here, though.”  
“Yeah,” agreed Melissa, coming over to join them. “Duckburg was nice.”  
“I wonder if there’s anyway we could come back,” asked Amanda.  
“I don’t know,” replied Milo, “We’ll have to ask Cavendish and Dakota.”  
“Doof might know,” Zack suggested.  
“Possibly,” Milo allowed slowly, “but we don’t see him that often.” He suddenly and involuntarily remembered the conversation he had had with Heinz in his parents’ kitchen at one AM. “His time travel research keeps him pretty busy.”  
Scrooge came over to the four teenagers, interrupting their conversation. “Fenton and Gyro have informed me that everything is almost ready,” he said. He looked as though he was debating whether or not to ask them to stay, but instead he said, “You’re always welcome in Duckburg.”  
“Thanks,” said Milo. As Scrooge and Milo shook hands, a deep, electric blue haze descended over the clean room and warning alarms blared loudly. Milo nervously fidgeted with the quantum inhibitor on his wrist again. It had been designed specifically for him by Fenton, who had explained that it would lock Milo’s quantum frequency within a very narrow bandwidth and would prevent him from creating another quantum anomaly. Milo took a deep, steadying breath. Gyro and Fenton were both hunched over their computers studying their readouts and data feeds. Occasionally they exchanged a few terse words with each other.  
“Power indicators are nominal”  
“Anti-proton levels are good.”  
“Muon traps are stable.”  
Gyro entered a string of commands into his computer. In between the upright carbon fibre panels, a pair of curved panels began rose up and began to spin rapidly, soon they were little more than a rapidly spinning blur. Tendrils of energy began to play back and forth in the space between the where the event horizon would eventually form. First one, then three or four, then dozens, then hundreds. Milo checked himself nervously. He didn’t feel the same sense of inexplicable immobility that he had felt in Phineas’ backyard.He looked around at Zack, Melissa and Amanda. He suddenly felt as though they were watching him he tried to give them a reassuring thumbs up.  
At the same time, a pencil thin beam of green energy shot down from somewhere overhead into the swirling mass of energy. There was a blinding flash of light and Milo instinctively threw his hands up in front of his eyes. When the light faded and Milo was able to uncover his eyes, he saw a what appeared to be a hole in space. The wormhole’s event horizon was rimmed with a writhing ribbon of blue-white energy. The middle was like looking through a window. Milo could see what appeared to be his backyard. He could clearly see Doof’s shed. It appeared to night time. Doof and Perry were clearly silhouetted against the window. He could also see the lights from his parents kitchen. His father was on crutches and his sister was stirring something in a pot on the stove. Diogee was sniffing around her feet looking for scraps.  
Milo hefted his backpack and took a step up on to the raised platform. The energy made the air crackle and Milo felt the hair on his arms stand on end. He could sense Zack, Melissa and Amanda following behind him. As he approached the edge of the event horizon, Milo’s vision distorted weirdly as he approached the event horizon. Everything tilted crazily as he approached the event horizon and Milo felt his feet leave ground. He suddenly realized that he was being pitched head first through the wormhole and he tried to curl himself into a ball, but didn’t have enough time and landed in a heap on the back lawn, Milo felt fire in his chest as he landed on his bad rib. At the same time, he felt his backpack pressing uncomfortably down on his spine. From somewhere nearby he heard a series of dull thuds as Zack, Melissa and Amanda hit the ground around him. Thankfully nobody landed on Milo directly this time. He heard the distant sound of Diogee barking, then the back door opening, followed by footsteps and voices.  
The next thing Milo knew a long tongue was licking his right ear and snuffling his hair. “Diogee!” he said excitedly. “Good boy!” Ignoring the renewed pain in his chest, Milo pushed himself to his feet. He brushed off the dirt and gave Diogee a scratch behind the ears. He wagged his stumpy tail and barked happily at the sight of his owner. Milo’s mother reached him first. “Hi, Mom,” said Milo.  
“Milo,” she said, brushing the dirt off of his shoulders, “what are you doing out in the yard? Why didn’t you come straight inside after you got back from Phineas’ house?”  
Milo was suddenly confused. “After I-but Mom, that was two weeks ago.”  
“No, little bro,” said Sara, “that was just this morning.”  
Melissa looked skeptical. “Are you sure, Sara?” she asked. She pulled out her phone. “Here,” she handed Milo’s sister her phone.”Check the date.”  
Sara tapped through the calendar app on Melissa’s phone. Sure enough Melissa’s calendar was two weeks out of synch. “Wizardy,”she said in amazement.  
Milo’s father came hobbling up on his crutches.   
“Hi, Dad,”said Milo with a wave.  
“Milo,” said his father, slightly confused, “what are you doing in the yard? Did you forget that you invited Cavendish and Dakota for dinner?”  
Actually, Milo had forgotten. “Uhhhhh, yeah Dad,” he said. He suddenly realized that talking to the two time agents might be a very good idea. “I guess I did.” He turned and walked into the house.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo Murphy’s Life is the direction continuation of the canonical events of Milo Murphy’s Law. Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda have safely returned to Danville from Duckburg.

Milo walked across the yard and pushed open the back door into the kitchen. As he stepped into the brightly lit space he smelled his mother’s cooking. He stopped and took a deep sniff. It smelled wonderful and Milo suddenly realized that his mouth was watering. As he surveyed the kitchen, taking in the smells wafting from the stove, he suddenly envisioned Scrooge, his nephew and Della sitting down to dinner and he wondered what they were doing. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door bell ringing. He walked from the kitchen through the rest of the house to the front door. He opened it and found Cavendish and Dakota standing on the threshold.  
“Hello, Milo,” said Cavendish.  
“Hi Cavendish, Dakota,” said Milo. “Why don’t you come in.” He took a step back and they walked in side. “Everyone’s in the yard,” said Milo, shutting the front door. Cavendish and Dakota followed Milo back through to the kitchen, where everyone had congregated around the dinner table. Milo’s mother was stirring something in a pot on the stove and Sara had gotten extra chairs for Zack, Melissa and Amanda and was setting three extra places. Milo’s father was balancing on his crutches while shutting the back door. Everyone was sitting down. Milo felt the comforting weight of Diogee pressing against his right leg. He reached down and patted the top of his head. Diogee’s tail thumped happily against the floor.   
“So, Milo,” asked Sara as their mother set a plate of roast chicken and bowls of vegetables on the table, “you went to see Phineas and Ferb this morning, but you said that was two weeks ago? What happened?”  
As Milo helped himself to chicken, mashed potatoes and carrots, he thought he saw Cavendish and Dakota exchange a look that clearly said, “well this ought to be good.” They were well aware of the kinds of predicaments that Milo and his friends often landed in as a result of Murphy’s Law, having landed in a few of them themselves, but as far as either of them could recall Milo had never admitted to experiencing two weeks worth of events that nobody else could remember. Without preamble and around mouthfuls of food, he told them the story.  
“And I thought the Octalian incident was weird,” said Dakota, when Milo had finished talking.  
“Actually, it sounds like the four of you were very lucky,” replied Cavendish earnestly. “You could have ended up anywhere in the multiverse.”  
That thought had occurred to Milo as well, on a couple of occasions during their stay in Duckburg. He had supposed at the time that they should be grateful that Scrooge had turned out to be reasonable person.  
“Yeah, it was strange at first,” said Zack, “but once you got to know them, they were actually OK.”  
“Well, to be fair, Launchpad was kind of dense,” said Melissa. “He kept going on about all the airplanes he’s crashed.”  
“Actually, Milo,” began Dakota slowly, “we’ve been meaning to talk to the four of you.”  
“Oh,” asked Milo, his curiosity piqued, “what about, Dakota?”  
Milo, Zack and Melissa all had the sense that Cavendish and Dakota had rehearsed this conversation more than once, and even Amanda, who hardly knew Cavendish and Dakota at all could tell that the usual easy rapport that they normally had with Milo, Zack and Melissa had suddenly changed.“Well, the four of you are all pretty good at looking out for each other.”  
“Well, I’ve got the three best friends in the world,” said Milo.  
“High praise indeed,” said Cavendish, with a note of approval in his voice,“but first there were the Pistachions-“  
“-And the Octalians,” interjected Dakota.  
“Twice,” riposted Milo.  
“-And now this,” continued Cavendish.“Look,” said Dakota matter of factly, “as much I think that Cavendish is being motivated the fact he wasn’t able prevent Milo from being abducted, doesn’t mean he isn’t right.”  
Milo’s father looked from his son to Dakota and back again, a mix of confusion and alarm on his face. “Dakota, what are you suggesting?” he asked.   
Sara caught Dakota’s meaning at once. “Are you suggesting that someone would,” she paused, as if trying to find the right words, “try to take Milo?”  
Dakota shrugged, “Well Milo’s not your typical teenager. Its entirely possible that there are people with nefarious motives who’d be interested in Milo.”  
Cavendish sighed. This conversation clearly wasn’t going the way he and Dakota had intended. “We don’t know of direct threats to Milo’s safety,” said Cavendish, “but the Octalians were sufficiently interested in Milo to study him and abduct him twice.” Cavendish and Dakota were both watching Milo, as though gaging the hapless teenager’s reaction. “And the Octalians had benign intentions.”  
“Look, Milo,” said Dakota, “we’re your friends and we’re trying to watch your back, so that’s why we’d to make a proposal to the four of you.”  
“What did you have in mind?” asked Milo.  
“We’d like you to consider joining the Bureau mentorship program,” said Cavendish. “In essence, you’d shadow us.”  
“Yeah, it’s not as if we get the cool missions,” said Dakota, “mostly we just pick up alien garbage.”  
Milo was silent for what silent seemed like several minutes, as he digested what Cavendish and Dakota had said. He felt as though Cavendish and Dakota were still watching him, as though waiting for him to react. Milo shot a look at a his father, as though hoping to find some sign there, but evidently Milo’s father was also still digesting the implications of the conversation.  
It was Melissa who finally broke the silence. “So what about Phineas and Ferb?” she asked.  
“You mean the Flynn kid?” asked Dakota, in slight surprise. He hadn’t thought of Phineas and Ferb as a possible means of getting to Milo.  
“I let them study me,” said Milo. “You know, we built the Murphy’s Law Suit, to stop the Pistachions.”  
“Of course,” said Cavendish, in realization, “I had forgotten that.”  
Dakota nodded, “we’ll have to talk to the Flynn kid and his family.”

The battered van pulled into the driveway of the large rambling house in suburban Danville the next day. Cavendish turned the key in the ignition, shutting off the engine, and he, Dakota and Milo got out. They walked up the sidewalk to the front door. Milo rang the door bell. A second or two later the door opened to reveal a long necked sixteen year old girl with a long mane of red hair flowing down her back, almost to her waist. “Hi, Candace,” said Milo. ”We need to talk to Phineas and Ferb. Are they around?”  
“They’re in the backyard building another one of their crazy contraptions,” she said.  
Milo, Cavendish and Dakota walked through the house, pushed open the back door and stepped out into the yard.  
Cavendish and Dakota looked around the yard in amazement. A tall leafy tree stood in the middle of the yard. Packing crates and thick power cables were strewn everywhere. A sleek blue and white space plane stood half completed in the middle of the yard. Cavendish and Dakota looked around in a amazement. They both turned to Milo.  
“Does his yard always look like this?” asked Dakota.  
Milo nodded. “I think so,” he said. “at least it did last time.” Milo was still having trouble deciding if last time was two weeks ago or yesterday morning.  
As they walked across the yard, in addition to Phineas and Ferb’s usual collection of friends, Milo noticed several figures who he had had not seen before. They seemed to be composed of ghostly blue white light, which was emanating from some kind of projector on a tripod. One of the figures was a boy with a mop of shaggy black hair in a T-shirt, running shoes and baggy looking shorts that came down to the middle of his shins. Overhead a crane was lowering what appeared to be a heavy looking jet engine onto a pylon that stuck out from the fuselage of the space plane. As he crossed the yard, Milo heard the hologram of the boy with the shaggy black hair say, “Baymax, perform another structural integrity scan.” From somewhere that Milo evidently couldn’t see, he heard a calm, precise voice say, “scan complete. Structural integrity has improved by 24%.”   
At these words a mop of unkept red hair appeared above the lip of the cockpit. “Thanks, Hiro,”said Phineas.  
Hiro started say, “No problem, Phineas,” however, before he could completely get the words out, the crane with the jet engine suddenly swung sideways. The momentum of the sudden movement pulled the cable supporting the jet engine taught, which snapped with a crack like a gunshot, sending the heavy piece of machinery flying across the yard, leaving a furrow of plowed earth in its wake and knocking over the holographic projector. The hologram of Hiro Hamada flickered and once and blinked out.   
Phineas looked in dismay at the wreckage strewn across the yard. “It took us half the morning to set up that move. How could this happen?” He caught sight of Milo, Cavendish and Dakota walking across the yard. “Oh, of course,” he thought, “it would have to be Murphy’s Law.” He hopped down from the cockpit of the space plane and walked across the yard to where Milo, Cavendish and Dakota were picking their way over a particularly thick tangle of cables. They met in the middle of the yard. “Hi, Milo,”said Phineas, “I’m glad you’re OK after yesterday.”  
“Thanks,” said Milo, “and actually ‘yesterday’ was two weeks ago.”   
Phineas looked intrigued. “Really?” he asked, “how did-“  
“That’s not really important,” said Milo.  
Phineas’ face fell a little, “Oh, well, OK then.” He gestured to the mess that Murphy’s Law had made of the yard. “It’s just that we have this mess to clean up and we have to make a very tight launch window in order to make our landing on Europa.”  
“Wait, hang on a second,” said Dakota. His eyebrows went up as his eyes widen behind his sunglasses in surprise, “you’re going to Europa? Aren’t you a little young to be an astronaut?”  
The young genius gazed steadily up at the much older man. “Yes, yes I am.”  
“Well, ummmm, OK, then,” muttered Dakota.  
“We are getting away from why we came here,” interjected Cavendish. “Phineas, we came because we wanted to talk to you about the study you conducted on Milo during the second Pistachion invasion.”  
“Oh, OK,” said Phineas, “what did you want to know?”  
“We want to know if you shared your Murphy’s Law data with anyone,” replied Dakota.   
Phineas thought for a second. “No,” he said, “I haven’t shared that data with anyone.” He looked searchingly at Milo. “Milo, what’s going on?”  
Milo shrugged. “Probably nothing,” he said. “It’s just that a lot of weird stuff has happened lately, even for me, and Cavendish and Dakota just want to make sure nothing happens without us knowing about it.”  
“The Bureau of Time Travel runs a mentorship program, which Milo and his friends have agreed to join,” explained Cavendish. “We’d like you to join them.”  
“Yeah, we don’t get the cool missions,” explained Dakota, casting a slightly envious eye over the sleek space plane dominating Phineas’ backyard, “we mostly just pick up alien garbage, but the Bureau has a bunch STEM programs you might be interested in.”  
Phineas appeared intrigued again. “Well, OK,” he said at last.


End file.
